Ottawa announces its 2 billion tree program is surpassing targets

Ottawa announced it is on track to plant two billion trees as part of its ambitious nature and climate policy program. 

Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson announced the government has exceeded its planting goals for the program over its first two years.

"Since we made that commitment we have made significant progress with our partners across the country," Wilkinson said. 

Wilkinson said the program has planted 110 million trees to date. 

In the past, Natural Resources Canada, or NRCAN, has said the program was supposed to have planted 90 million trees as of the 2022 planting season — 30 million in 2021 and 60 million in 2022.

In 2021 the program missed its target by three per cent. 

UPDATE: Ottawa announces its 2 billion tree program is surpassing targets

The government's signature nature and climate initiative has come under scrutiny from the Conservatives when Wilkinson appears before parliamentary committees. 

The program has also come under fire from the national environment watchdog for its slow rollout.

The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainability estimated that, based on the government's contracts, 16.5 million trees were expected to be planted in 2022. 

But the commissioner's audit made that projection before the 2022 final growing season numbers came in. 

WATCH | Canada's environment watchdog takes a critical look at the two billion trees program

Liberals fall behind on campaign promise to plant 2 billion trees

2 years ago

Duration 1:52

A new report shows the federal government is falling short of its environmental targets, including a campaign promise to plant two billion new trees. It also found that the environmental benefits wouldn't be realized for decades, even if the program were to hit its target.

The government of Canada is planting only some of the two billion trees. Ottawa relies on Indigenous communities, provinces, territories, businesses and non-profit organizations to do most of the planting.

The federal government provides half the money required to plant trees through cost-sharing agreements. 

The program aims to tackle what the government calls the "twin crises" of nature loss and climate change.

Ottawa is investing up to $3.2 billion over 10 years (2021-2031) in its two billion tree program. 

Tree Canada is one of the organizations partnering with government. It has a 10-year, $41 million agreement to plant 21 million trees. 

The organization and its partners planted over a million trees last year, and they are on track to plant 1.5 million trees this year.

The head of Tree Canada's national greening program, Randall Van Wagner, acknowledged that the program has some growing pains in finding the appropriate land to cultivate, preparing the area, and finding enough seeds. 

"We're doing pretty good," Van Wagner said. "But it is challenging." 

He said communicating with nurseries has been critical to ensuring they can scale up seed production, which can take more than a year to grow. 

"It's not the greatest for us to pick up the phone in spring and say, 'Oh, we need 200,000 white pine.' It's best to give them a forecast," Van Wagner said.

Tree Canada, he said, has been signing multi-year agreements with seed growers to help give them some predictability. 

Replanting forests devastated by wildfires  

While much of the conversation has been about the government's planting program meeting ambitious targets, now there's at least one call for the government to refocus the program.

This year's wildfire season has taken a toll on Canada, which is one of the world's most forested countries with nearly 362 million hectares of forest. 

Over 13 million hectares of forest have burned in Canada this wildfire season, surpassing previous records. 

Derek Nighbor, the president and CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada, said an assessment needs to be done coming out of the 2023 season to determine if all the land will regenerate naturally or if programs like two billion trees need to step in. 

"We are seeing some forests that aren't growing back," Nighbor said. "So there is a bit of a gap here in parts of the northern forest where provincial governments are not replanting."

"They have not had the budgets to replant the forests that are affected by fire," he added. "I think that is an emerging opportunity for the two billion trees program."

Replanting much of the Crown land devastated by wildfire, Nighbor said, is the responsibility of provincial and territorial governments. 

Ottawa hopes provinces and territories will plant the lion's share of its trees — 1.35 billion. 

As of March, it had signed agreements with five of the 10 provinces and two of the three territories.

Wilkinson said Wednesday that the deforestation of areas affected by wildfire is an "important conversation," which he suspects he'll be having with his provincial and territorial counterparts over the coming months. 

The Department of Natural Resources, Wilkinson said, is "increasingly" focusing a large part of the program on reforestation after wildfires.

To help with the needed work, Wilkinson announced that $63.9 million from the two billion tree budget will go to support planting 35 million trees to restore wildfire-scorched forests and reserve lands damaged by wildfires. 

He also announced an Indigenous funding stream for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis led projects.

But one forester says the need to replant areas affected by wildfire may not be as dire as some think. University of Alberta associate professor, Brad Pinno, said Canada's forests are well adapted to recover from wildfires. 

But there are some exceptions, he said, where repeated wildfires have scarred an area. 

"What I see as a risk in the future is where we are seeing repeated fires in an area," Pinno said. "Those are the areas I would be most worried about."