ESSEN, Germany, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Canada's Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Saturday the three items his next budget must contain are personal tax cuts, a resolution of the fiscal gap with the provincial governments and environmental initiatives.

"On the spending side we have to deal with the fiscal imbalance-to-balance issue first of all, we have to also deal with personal tax reductions. We're committed to reducing personal taxes and choices remain to be made about how best to do that. ... and environmental initiatives ... So those are certainly three of the primary items for the budget," he told Reuters after a meeting of G7 finance ministers.

Flaherty said he needed to see the latest projections of the budget surplus for the current fiscal year before deciding which of a long list of tax breaks and other measures he would include in the budget, which is expected in March and could likely trigger an election.

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