The federal government’s 2 Billion Trees planting program will not achieve its goal, the Department of Natural Resources has admitted.
Department managers testifying at a Commons environment committee meeting on Oct.19 said the target will not be met. The admission followed an April 20 report by Environment Commissioner Jerry DeMarco titled “Financial Support For Planting Two Billion Trees” which concluded the program was unlikely to succeed.
“It has become a tree counting program not a tree planting program,” testified Mr. DeMarco, as reported by Blacklock’s. “There are problems. They count the same tree twice with different programs.”
Monique Frisson, director general of the Canadian Forest Service, said during the meeting the government might fall short of its program’s namesake figure. Ms. Frisson said the program will plant the “lion’s share” of the two billion trees promised, estimating 1.85 to 1.9 billion trees will eventually be planted.
“So why is it called the two billion trees program?” Conservative MP Michael Kram asked. “Why not rename it the billion-and-a-half tree program or the one billion tree program?”
Ms. Frisson said the name of the program was about trying to draw interest among Canadians.
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“For us, it was trying to be clear about the intent and the whole-of-government commitment to try to rally interest among Canadians,” she said. She added there has been a lot of interest from cities, indigenous communities, and even private citizens wanting to organize a tree-planting event to help reach the goal.
The Liberal Party, as part of its its 2019 election platform titled “Forward: A Real Plan For The Middle Class,” promised to plant two billion trees within a decade. With a $3.2 billion budget, the natural resources department did not finalize the program until 2021.
“We already have planted 110 million of those trees toward that commitment,” testified Ms. Frisson, saying the government has agreements signed or under negotiation to plant 370 million trees by 2031.
The report by Mr. DeMarco said the government wasn’t on track to plant even four percent of the promised trees by the end of 2030. It found that while the government planted 95 percent of the planned 30 million trees in 2021, it had only 28 percent of the signed agreements in place to plant the promised number in 2022.
The government’s goal was to plant 60 million trees in 2022 but, based on the number of signed agreements, the environment commissioner projected only 16.5 million trees would have been planted. The commissioner’s report made the 16.5 million tree projection before the final growing season numbers came in for 2022, however.
Since then, Ottawa has said it is back on track. Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson announced in August the program had planted 110 million trees, surpassing the 90 million tree goal set for the first two years of the program.
Mr. DeMarco has called that 110 million figure “creative accounting” and said he remains skeptical that Ottawa can reach its goal by 2030.
When questioned by Mr. Kram on the veracity of his report during the committee meeting, Mr. DeMarco defended his findings, saying the government did not provide him with accurate numbers. He said no mention was made of the Liberals using the 54 million trees planted through the Low Carbon Economy Fund as part of its final tally for 2022.
The Low Carbon Economy Fund is a federal program designed to fund projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, generate clean growth, and create jobs for Canadians.
“They didn’t say, ‘we’re just waiting for the numbers. Hold on, we’ll have this’,” Mr. DeMarco told the committee. “We were told the program was about incremental trees, not double-counting trees from other programs.”
“Will the government plant two billion trees through their original program on time?” asked Conservative MP Dan Mazier.
“I would say no,” replied Mr. DeMarco.
