Roundup: Canada's new government highlights climate change, peacekeeping as priorities

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Friday outlined government priorities at the opening of the 42nd parliament, including addressing climate change, restoring the country's historic role in peacekeeping and repairing its relationship with Canada's aboriginal peoples.

Delivered in the reading of the Speech from the Throne by Governor General David Johnston, the priorities were largely a repeat of the new government's campaign promises.

The federal government plans to pursue a national carbon-pricing plan, make "strategic investments in clean technology (and) provide more support for companies seeking to export those technologies," said the speech, one of the shortest in recent memory with 1,649 words.

Its title, "Making real change happen," is intended to differentiate Trudeau's liberal government from his predecessor Stephen Harper's Conservative government.

While Harper four years ago pulled Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol that set global targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Trudeau on Monday told delegates attending the opening of the United Nations climate change conference in Paris that "Canada is back," and is prepared to do its part to lower emissions.

His government will introduce new environmental assessment processes, the throne speech said. "Public input will be sought and considered. Environmental impacts will be understood and minimized. Decisions will be informed by scientific evidence," it read.

Canada will also strengthen its relationship with allies, "especially with our closest friend and partner, the United States," Trudeau's government pledged.

International development assistance will focus "on helping the world's poorest and most vulnerable," and Canada will renew its commitment to UN peacekeeping operations

Trudeau has already announced that Canada would end its air strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) -- an operation begun under Harper's watch -- and deploy more troops to help train peshmerga, or Kurdish fighters, on the ground in northern Iraq.

Yet Canada "will continue to work with its allies in the fight against terrorism," Trudeau's government said in the throne speech.

However, Rona Ambrose, the leader of Canada's Official Opposition in the House of Commons and the interim leader of the Conservative Party following Harper's resignation from the post, expressed his concerns to reporters in Ottawa on Friday that "ISIS" wasn't mentioned in the speech "while the rest of the world is expanding and enhancing their fight against the Islamic State."

"If you're not prepared to actually name the threat, how are you prepared to take the fight to the threat?" Ambrose asked.

The speech did mention the government's plan to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees in Canada by the end of February -- an initiative Trudeau's liberals had hoped to complete by year's end but had to extend to facilitate the screening and selection process overseas and find accommodations for the newcomers once they arrive here.

As promised, Trudeau's government will launch an inquiry into the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls -- of whom there are 1,181 documented cases dating back to 1980, according to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police report released last year.

Trudeau's government also pledged to legalize, regulate and restrict access to marijuana. Endi