CANADA’S new Liberal government has promised to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the year and cancel an order for US fighter jets.

In a jibe at his authoritarian Conservative predecessor Stephen Harper, PM Justin Trudeau declared: “Government by cabinet is back.”

After the new government’s first cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Immigration Minister John McCallum said it remains the new government’s “firm objective” to settle 25,000 Syrian refugees in Canada before the end of the year.

This was in contrast to Tory immigration policy, which was highlighted by Toronto’s refusal to grant an asylum request to the family of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi by his Canadian-resident relatives.

The subsequent image of the drowned toddler’s body on a Turkish beach became emblematic of the Mediterranean refugee crisis.

Minister of Public Services and Procurement Judy Foote said the government would cancel Tory plans to buy 65 Lockheed Martin F-35 strike fighters from the US.

With programme costs approaching £1 trillion, the F-35 is the most expensive weapons system in world history.

Washington has sought to spread costs by selling the white elephant to allies including Britain and Israel in a sales campaign reminiscent of that for Lockheed’s deathtrap F-104 Starfighter in the 1960s.

But the jet is slow, clunky, short-ranged, underarmed and failing to meet development targets, with a dubious stealth capability its only selling point.