THE SOLDIER, HIS ACORNS & A TREE PLAN UPROOTED
Canadian bid to mark 100th anniversary of Vimy Ridge with gift of saplings got caught up in red tape, writes Tom Spears
Canadians who hoped to plant oak trees at Vimy Ridge this year to mark the 100th anniversary of the historic battle there had the saplings ready and Canadian politicians onside — until the French government uprooted their plans.
A Canadian soldier, Leslie Miller, scooped up acorns from Vimy Ridge after the battle in 1917. He would survive the war and plant the acorns on his farm, Vimy Oaks Farm, in what is now suburban Toronto.
The Vimy Foundation charity decided to send back some saplings from Miller’s old home — descendants of those original trees — to plant on the ridge, commemorating the wartime link between Canada and France — a little like the tulips that the Netherlands sends to Ottawa each year.
But they got the bad news from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which regulates imports and exports of plants: “Export denied.”
The CFIA was only passing on the ruling from France, which was worried about inadvertently importing Canadian plant diseases.
And as a result, the Vimy Foundation, whose mandate is to “promote Canada’s First World War legacy,” and a smaller group called Vimy Oaks Legacy, agreed to send only acorns, not trees, to France, hoping they can be planted there and produce tiny seedlings in time for the 100th anniversary of the war’s end.
Internal documents at CFIA, obtained by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin, reveal the behind-thescenes story of how Canada failed in repeated efforts to send a gift of trees.
The foundation called its plan “a living memorial, planted in France for the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.”
Then it got the rejection from CFIA: “I unfortunately must inform you that it will not be possible for the CFIA to certify the oak trees for export to France,” the federal agency wrote last fall.
“As explained in our email correspondence over the past months, the EU has strict phytosanitary import requirements for oak trees to prevent the introduction of several regulated quarantine plant pests, especially Cronartium spp., Cryphonectria parasitica, Bemisia tabaci and Xylella fastidiosa.
“These pests are all know to be present in Canada.”
Since Canada doesn’t conduct surveys to find the pests in question, the EU believes they could, potentially, be anywhere in Canada. And certifying a nursery here as disease-free would take years.
But there’s no rule demanding that acorns be certified as pestfree. So, acorns it is.
“I understand the concern that acorns in the ground will not be as appealing as trees for the 2017 ceremonies at Vimy, but the CFIA has reviewed all the information available and this is the only feasible option,” the CFIA wrote to the Vimy Foundation.
Inside the CFIA, someone worried that the issue might become “visible and political.” An email notes: “FYI — they might not be happy and go to Minister or media.”
A scientist added that expensive testing to confirm whether the bacterium’s DNA is present would be “très fastidieux. OMG I’m so funny.”
As a footnote a CFIA staffer added: “France did a detailed phytosanitary analysis and came back with a decisive no, because Xylella is just too high-risk.”
The note adds that a group, whose name is blanked out (possibly the Vimy Foundation), is “resigned” to using acorns as a backup plan.
A letter in late 2016 from the Vimy Oaks Legacy Corp. tells how one of its members travelled to France with 600 acorns in a suitcase and arranged for a nursery to plant them.
“We hope to have some trees large enough to be planted on the ridge by April 2018, and a complete planting by November 2018” — the 100th anniversary of the armistice — the letter says.
Weeks later a CFIA email notes: “export of oak trees from Canada to France denied by France. Acorns already in France and contracted to germinate. So this particular issue is resolved. (sic)”
In a twist, one CFIA staffer notes that the Xylella bug does in fact exist in Europe, but it is in only a few places and there’s a major EU campaign to wipe it out before it spreads.
France has reason, historically at least, to be nervous. In the mid-1800s, the French wine industry was almost wiped out by an invasive insect called phylloxera.
Jeremy Diamond, executive director of the Vimy Foundation, said their plan was delayed “but at the end of the day, descendants from those acorns that were collected by that soldier will be planted in the park.”