Year-in-Review 2015: Sunny Ways dominates national news; ISIL, terrorist attacks besiege world news

Trudeau and the Liberals form government

After a 2011 election that saw them win only 34 seats in Parliament, Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada won a 184-seat majority in October.

With a longest-ever campaigning period of 78 days, polls in August saw the New Democrat Party leading both the Progressive Conservative and Liberal Parties. Throughout the campaign, Trudeau and the Liberals gained significant ground, with the NDP taking significant losses and the PCs polling consistently.

On election day, the Liberals received 39.47 per cent of the popular vote and experienced the largest swing in seat numbers of any Canadian election. PC leader Stephen Harper resigned after his party came out of the election with 61 fewer seats. Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe followed suit after he lost the race in his own constituency.

Though several campaign promises, such as taking in Syrian refugees and reversing the ban on blood donation by gay men, it remains to be seen the changes that will be made in the Liberal budget and other legislation.

Canada welcomes Syrian refugees

With promises to resettle 25,000 people fleeing the violence in Syria, Canada has officially opened its doors to refugees.

Now that the #WelcomeRefugees program is in full effect, 6,300 have arrived in Canada, and more than 21,000 refugee applications are in progress or finalized. Prime Minister Trudeau was on hand to welcome the first wave of migrants to Canada, making international headlines in the process.

Trudeau’s initial goal to resettle 25,000 refugees by the end of December never came to fruition, that process is now slated to take until the end of February. Saying plans changed when increased security screening was moved overseas in response to the Paris attacks, Trudeau said he wanted to provide reassurance to Canadians.

Though the crisis in Syria remains a large priority for the Liberal government, the effects of the operation are not yet apparent.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Officially established in June 2008, the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission passed down its final recommendations regarding the legacy of residential schools.

Operating for over a century, over 150,000 Aboriginal children went through the residential school system. With the stated aim of assimilating the children into majority culture, allegations of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse as well as neglect towards students were widespread.

Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper established the TRC, which gathered testimonials from residential school survivors across the country. In 2014, the commission reported that over 4,000 children had died in the residential schools.

The TRC’s final report outlined 94 separate “Calls to Action” to “redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation.” These recommendations included the establishment of an inquiry to investigate missing and murdered aboriginal women, closing the education gap for Aboriginal people, and several calls for funding commemorative holidays and memorials.

How many of these recommendations will actually be enacted by the Liberals remains a topic of contention in and out of government.

Worldwide terrorist attacks

Emotion and worldwide attention was drawn to Paris, France on Nov. 13 when a stadium, concert hall, and numerous restaurants and bars were attacked with shootings and bomb blasts.

Explosions were detonated outside the Stade de France football stadium, and concert-goers were killed when gunmen opened fire  at the Bataclan concert hall during a performance by the band Eagles of Death Metal. The attack was heralded as the biggest and deadliest attack in France since World War II.

France declared a state of emergency in response and imposed temporary border checks. A few days later, the city of Brussels went into lockdown as the terrorist threat was raised to the highest level.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility for the attacks, which resulted in 130 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

Other terrorist attacks in the year included a 148 person massacre at the Garissa University in Kenya. 39 people were also killed in Sousse, Tunisia after a gunman opened fire on a beach resort.

Same-sex marriage legalized in the United States

At the end of June, the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage across the United States. Previous to the ruling, 14 states had bans on same-sex marriage.

The ruling was met with worldwide celebration and support — human rights activists had been campaigning since the 1970s.

Pluto

The appearance of the former ninth planet of the solar system was revealed this year by NASA’s high-resolution photos, taken in a historic flyby by spacecraft New Horizons in July. Previously the world only knew Pluto through pixelated images.

The new photos showed Pluto in as a reddish-brown planet with a hear-shaped white mountain range.