Conservative Canada taking fiscal stimulus slowly

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Canada says it will play its part in a global effort to stimulate the world economy, but Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Saturday he still not did foresee running a budget deficit in the current fiscal year.

Flaherty said he would include fiscal measures when he presents his fall fiscal and economic update in the last week of November, but it would not likely contain new tax cuts and it would also try to restrain public sector spending.

He told Reuters in an interview that the country might move into a deficit as the result of future, undefined stimulus measures but that would likely only start in the fiscal year that begins April 1.

"I don't expect so far at least that we will have a deficit this fiscal year," he said after a summit of the Group of 20 (G20) leading developed and developing nations.

The minister had mused this week about selling government assets to help its budget position, but he said he was not actively considering selling the government's stake in the Hibernia offshore oil fields.

He said Canada achieved most of what it had sought in the G20 negotiations but professed disappointment that the group did not require tougher rules of hedge funds than it did.

"Our view is all significant pools of capital that are leveraged need to be subject to capitalisation rules in particular," he said.

The group only committed that hedge funds should submit "best practices" which ministers would review to see if they were adequate. He added that this could be revisited in the future, however.

(Reporting by Randall Palmer; Editing by Eric Walsh)