The speech, which was written by the Liberal government and read in the Senate on Friday afternoon by Governor-General David Johnston, was just eight pages long – shorter than all but one of the seven delivered under former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled his agenda for the coming months on Friday, with a promise to do everything from taking assault weapons off the street to overhauling how Canadians elect a government.
The Trudeau government lays out its agenda for its first session of Parliament today with the speech from the throne.
Mulcair said he was concerned that there was nothing in speech about returning the age of retirement to 65 or expanding child care for Canadian families, despite Liberal election promises to do so.
It reiterated Trudeau’s pledge to cut the tax rate for middle-income earners and provide a more generous child benefit to those who need it.
Under the Liberal government, more investments will be made in public transit, green infrastructure and social infrastructure as well.
To implement the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and launch an inquiry into missing or murdered Aboriginal women and girls. Rather, it promised more generally to produce “a fiscal plan that is responsible, transparent and suited to challenging economic times”.
The Conservatives, who took aim at the size and compensation of the public service over nearly a decade, often signalled their public management plans in throne speeches by announcing administrative and strategic reviews, freezes on departments’ operational budgets, and wage controls.
The government promised to “support CBC/Radio-Canada, encourage and promote the use of Canada’s official languages, and invest in Canada’s cultural and creative industries”.
“We’re going to be there as the progressive opposition”, the third party leader said.
Promises to strengthen the employment insurance system and work with the provinces and territories to enhance the Canada Pension Plan also rated a mention in the speech. Yet government House leader Dominic LeBlanc says it’s a priority for the government to get a special joint parliamentary committee struck as early as next week to begin consultations aimed at drafting a law governing medically assisted death by next August.
The speech affirmed the government’s commitment to admit 25,000 refugees from Syria by the end of February, an extension of its earlier promise to reach the target by the end of this month. “Agriculture wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the throne speech”.
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Renew the relationship between Canada and Indigenous peoples. However, for the first time, the government said it will restrict access to marijuana but did not elaborate.
