Justin Trudeau to move forward with ambitious agenda by year's end
An incoming Liberal majority government will move forward with an ambitious agenda and open Parliament with a speech from the throne before the end of the year, CBC News has learned.
The new agenda will follow next week's swearing in of a new Liberal cabinet, marking the official transition of power after nearly a decade of Conservative Party rule.
The Liberal government's general program for the parliamentary session that will follow is expected to include proposed legislation to lower taxes on the middle class and a plan to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees, a senior Liberal source told CBC News.
That will happen after Trudeau returns from a busy travel schedule of international events including the Group of 20 summit in Turkey, the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit in the Philippines and the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris.
Before the Paris meeting he is also expected to attend the Commonwealth meeting in Malta, where he would meet the Queen, whom he first met when he was a child and his father was prime minister.
Extension on doctor-assisted suicide
The Liberals will consider asking the Supreme Court for at least an additional six months to come up with new laws around doctor-assisted suicide, the source said.
The court ruled that in specific cases terminally ill adults have the right to ask a doctor to help them die, giving Ottawa until Feb. 6 to amend the current law.
"One year is hardly enough," Trudeau said earlier this year when he introduced a Liberal motion calling on the House of Commons to take action on physician-assisted death.
Other Liberal government priorities include launching an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women, repealing certain measures included in Bill C-51, the anti-terror law, and a reinstatement of the long-form census.
Trudeau is expected to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama during the G20 meeting in Turkey.
Obama is already aware of Trudeau's intentions to pull Canada out of the U.S.-led air combat mission against ISIS in Iraq.
"He understands the commitments I've made around ending the combat mission," Trudeau told reporters last week during his first news conference as prime minister-designate.
