Five years after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to plant two billion trees by the year 2030, the Liberal government is barely a quarter of the way there.
A spokesperson from Natural Resources Canada told True North that as of Mar. 2024, agreements have been signed or are under negotiation to plant 553 million trees but it remains unclear how many of those trees have actually been put into the ground.
“Tree planting at this scale takes time and careful planning. It can take years from the start of a project to get from seeds to trees. For this reason, the 2BT program focuses on securing long-term agreements, in order to provide partners with the certainty they need to get the work done,” said the spokesperson.
Even if the 553 million trees had already been planted, not just as agreements, the Liberals would still be off-track. Considering the program began in Feb. 2021, to plant 2 billion trees in 10 years, as of Aug. 2024, the Liberals would have had to have planted 700 million trees to be on pace.
While facing pressure from climate activists including a 2019 Montreal rally led by Greta Thunberg, Trudeau spontaneously made the two billion trees pledge in a tweet.
While Canadians may have become weary of tree planting goals thanks to the Liberals’ 2 billion trees promise, which continuously fails to meet targets, Forests Ontario is celebrating its own tree planting season.
Forests Ontario announced the successful planting of 2.7 million trees across Canada this season on Thursday, bringing its national total to 46.5 million trees.
However, Forests Ontario said that the record was in part due to support received from Natural Resources Canada’s 2 Billion Trees program, along with support from donors and planting partners.
Forest Recovery Canada supported the planting of 700,000 trees outside Ontario this planting season, including over 380,000 in Alberta, more than 200,000 in Nova Scotia, over 70,000 in British Columbia, more than 60,000 in New Brunswick, and at least 5,000 in Manitoba.
Peter Moddle, National Program Manager of Forests Ontario, said that connecting with communities and organizations interested in planting trees was a pleasure.
“We are very proud of the accomplishments we made with our new planting partners across Canada this year, including restoring ecosystems after wildfires and extreme wind events like hurricanes,” said Moddle.
Forest Ontario said that its tree-planting programs reduce the costs of tree planting, making it easier and more affordable for communities to plant them.
An audit done in Apr. 2023 by Canada’s Environment Commissioner, Jerry DeMarco, found that the Liberals’ two billion tree program would not hit the mark unless “significant changes” were made.
The audit highlighted that the goal was to plant 30 million trees in 2021 and another 60 million in 2022. The targets were already missed by at least 45 million trees by the time of the audit.
DeMarco’s projections show that 76.2 million trees, 3.8% of the 2 billion target, will be planted by 2030.
The Liberals issued a press release in Aug. 2023 saying that their 2 billion trees program was exceeding goals. Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said that Canada had already planted 110 million trees, surpassing the 90 million goal up to 2023.
However, only 56 million trees were actually planted through the Liberals’ tree planting program, while 54 million were planted as a result of Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Low Carbon Economy Fund.
The last milestone provided by the Liberals highlighted the opening of applications under the Indigenous Funding Stream in Oct. 2023. No updates have been given since.
However, Blacklock’s Reporter revealed an internal memo from the Department of Natural Resources said that the “two billion trees” was picked as a slogan, not to be taken literally. The memo allegedly said, “I can’t give an exact date on when the two billion trees will be planted exactly.”