Thank you for the question. Just to provide some background, the composition of the employment insurance account is driven by revenues collected from EI premiums. Those revenues are driven by total employment in the Canadian economy and also insurable earnings, so as insurable earnings go up people will pay more based on the EI premium rate. If more people are working, obviously there will be more revenues flowing into the employment insurance account.
Then also there's the actual EI premium rate setting. In the current setting the rate is $1.88. Then there are EI benefits, which is the entire suite of employment insurance benefits from regular benefits, sickness benefits, and then special benefits like maternity benefits and fishing benefits, for example, plus any administration costs from Employment and Social Development Canada and the Canadian Revenue Agency, which are the two biggest players on that.
In terms of the EI operating account balance, our most recent projection was in Budget 2014, where we projected the cumulative balance in a deficit position for 2014-15 of approximately $1.5 billion, leading to successive surpluses in future years—gradually going to the surplus position as the economy strengthens.
I'll leave it at that.