AP AP

CANADA’S NEW PRIME Minister Justin Trudeau has promised big changes – starting with having a gender-balanced cabinet.

The 43-year-old Liberal leader won after a landslide victory, in a move that dealt a blow to Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.

Trudeau promised big changes after nearly a decade of Conservative rule as he was sworn into office yesterday, almost 50 years after his father took the job.

The former bartender is the second-youngest prime minister in Canadian history.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shakes hands with Governor General David Johnston after being sworn in as prime minister of Canada at Rideau Hall in Ottawa AP AP

“We have an awful lot of work to do in coming weeks, months and years,” Trudeau said.

But I know that Canadians expected us to… deliver on the change, on the ambitious plan for this country that the Liberal party ran on, and that’s exactly what we’re going to deliver.

New cabinet

Among the new Liberal government’s pledges is to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees by year’s end, which new Immigration Minister John McCallum said “remains our firm objective”.

It also wants to wind down Canada’s combat mission against the Islamic State group.

Trudeau unveiled a cabinet that is equally split, containing 15 men and 15 women, from veterans to new faces.

To put that into perspective, Ireland’s Dáil is 84% male and 16% female, while there are five women and 12 men in the government cabinet.

Trudeau said his new cabinet “looks like Canada”. CBC reports that when asked why gender parity in his cabinet was important, the new Prime Minister said:

Because it’s 2015.

Who’s in Trudeau’s cabinet?

Members include:

• Former native chief Jody Wilson-Raybould as Canada’s first aboriginal justice minister. 
• Businessman Bill Morneau will manage the nation’s finances
• Decorated soldier Harjit Singh Sajjan will command the military
• Former astronaut Marc Garneau will be transport minister
• Catherine McKenna was appointed environment and climate change minister.
• Former Afghan refugee Maryam Monsef will be Minister of Democratic Institutions, and the youngest minister at age 30.  
• Amarjeet Sohi, infrastructure minister, once spent two years as a political prisoner in India. 

- Additional reporting by AFP

Read: Canada has elected a former snowboard instructor, bouncer and barman as its Prime Minister>