OTTAWA - Canadians can create 2.5 million new jobs and boost their incomes by at least 25 per cent by the year 2000, the government said Monday in a throne speech that offered future prosperity and ignored current hard times.

Instead, the speech invited Canadians to participate in "a new agenda for prosperity."

It put in a pitch for a Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement saying "North America-wide free trade is a logical next step - and one that will increase the prosperity of all Canadians."