Mayor Sutcliffe promised a million trees, but the money isn't in the budget

During his election campaign, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe promised to plant one million trees during his first term in office, but the city isn't budgeting nearly enough money to keep pace with that target.

The 2025 budget increases spending on tree planting from $1.7 million to $1.9 million, enough to plant about 70,000 to 100,000 trees. Last year, city forestry staff planted just over 104,000 trees, a number that doesn't include trees planted as part of infrastructure or development projects.

"The pledge to have a million trees would be 250,000 per year, and it doesn't look like the budget covers that," said Bay ward Coun. Theresa Kavanagh.

Alain Gonthier, the city's general manager of public works, said the mayor wasn't specific about who would plant the trees. Efforts by the National Capital Commision (NCC) and other entities could also count toward the target, he explained.

But city staff later noted that they aren't collecting external data on tree planting, so they weren't able to tell councillors how much the NCC or school boards, for example, are contributing toward the total.

City hasn't costed million-tree goal

In an emailed statement, the mayor's office said Sutcliffe remains committed to the goal of one million trees across Ottawa, and is working with both staff and the community "to explore innovative funding options, strategic partnerships, and leveraging federal programs to scale up tree planting over time.

"This includes a focus on equity to prioritize areas with low canopy coverage and engaging the community in a broader 'One Million Tree Challenge' to collectively achieve this aspirational target," the statement said.

Gonthier told councillors that the city is focusing more on quality over quantity. He said his team is targeting high-priority areas in urban Ottawa.

"The cost per tree is higher, which means that we may not be getting as many trees in the ground, but we're trying to get the trees where they should be placed, where we get the greatest return on investment," he said.

"When we focus just on the quantity, what ends up happening is we end up diverting resources towards planting thousands of trees more in open spaces, rural areas, and that's not really the area that we're trying to target in terms of improving the tree canopy."

He said the city hasn't estimated how much it would cost to meet the mayor's million-tree pledge.

"That's not the benchmark that we're trying to achieve right now," Gonther told the CBC. "What we're trying to achieve is a greater tree canopy cover."

Reporting timeline called 'completely unacceptable'

The city aims to cover 40 per cent of Ottawa's urban area with trees, in part to offset the heat island effect that's expected to get worse with climate change. But even with the canopy target, the city hasn't reported on its progress since 2019.

Angela Keller-Herzog, executive director of Community Associations for Environmental Sustainability, said the city should be doing an annual survey to assess whether it's losing or gaining tree cover.

Staff said trees mature so slowly that a five-year reporting cycle is appropriate. The next update is expected next year, though Keller-Herzog noted it will use 2022 data.

"I think it's completely unacceptable that it should take three years," she said.

Keller-Herzog said trees are good for mental health and the climate. They provide habitat for birds, store carbon and help with stormwater runoff.

Environment and climate change committee chair Shawn Menard said he's always pushing for more tree planting, but he noted that funding has increased within the "obvious budget constraints" facing the city.

"I think that the important thing is that we're looking to plant trees in areas that are losing their tree canopy," he said.

He highlighted two key efforts to do just that: The city has begun using an "equity analysis" to pinpoint the areas losing the most trees, and is also now automatically replanting trees lost to pests or storms in the city-owned right-of-way between the road and the property line, instead of asking the homeowner first.

Gonthier said about 3,000 of those trees are lost every year. Typically, the city is able to replace about 500 per year, but there are now plans to increase that to 2,000.