The first hundred days of Trudeau

One hundred days after Justin Trudeau was elected prime minister, his government has some achievements – along with a few broken promises.

One of the more prominent examples is the pledge to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of 2015. Planeloads of refugees are setting foot on Canadian soil and beginning new lives free from war, but the Liberals extended their Dec. 31 deadline until the end of February, breaking their election pledge to bring all 25,000 Syrians to Canada by the end of last year.

Here are some other hundred day highlights of Trudeau’s government, as reported on the TrudeauMetre website:

• Included an equal number of men and women in the new federal cabinet.
• Cut taxes for the middle class from 22 per cent to 20.5 per cent.
• Launched an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls
• Restored the mandatory long-form census.
• Introduced a new 22 per cent tax bracket for people earning more than $200,000
• Provided $100 million by April 2016 to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
• Kept up Canadian support for Eastern European nations including Ukraine, which has lost territory to Russian-backed separatists.
• Immediately doubled the number of immigration applications for parents and grandparents to 10,000 people per year.
• Revoked a Conservative law that forbade failed refugee claimants from certain ‘safe’ countries from pursuing appeals.
• Allowed people caring for seriously ill family members to access benefits for six months under the Compassionate Care Benefit program.
• Formed a new non-partisan process based on merit to advise the prime minister on Senate appointments.

…and some lowlights too.

• Broke its promise to quickly end Canadian air strikes against Islamic State in the Middle East.
• Tax reforms benefiting the middle class will not be revenue neutral as promised in the 2015 federal election campaign.

On Wednesday, the Trudeau government announced changes to the pipeline review process that would include an extension of Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain and Energy East pipeline reviews. However, some say the changes don't go far enough, and that the building of more oil and gas export pipelines would be incompatible with the government's climate goals.

After 100 days in office, a further 199 election pledges were either in progress or as yet not started.