Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty

Federal finance Minister Jim Flaherty: "We do not take EI funds and use them to balance the budget. That's what the Liberals did," Flaherty said Friday during a media conference in Markham, outside of Toronto, where he was holding pre-budget consultations with local academics, business and community leaders, according to CTV. A Parliamentary Budget Office report released Thursday said the Conservative government may need to depend on artificially high EI premiums, asset sales and spending restraint to balance the budget by the 2015 election and MARKHAM, Ont. -- Federal finance Minister Jim Flaherty is denying a federal watchdog analysis that says he's using high EI premiums to beef up his expected budget surplus in 2015. "We have stabilized and frozen the EI rates." (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.