Vow to plant two billion trees will total $5.94B

Liberal pledge will cost double estimate: PBO

OTTAWA • The parliamentary budget office says a pledge by the Trudeau Liberals to plant two billion trees could cost almost double what the government says.

The tree-planting spree, spread over a decade, is supposed to start in the spring and cost $3.16 billion over that time, based on federal estimates.

Getting to the 2030 target means planting about 200 million trees a year more than the usual 600 million or so.

The spending watchdog’s analysis suggests getting there is also going to require more money, about $2.78 billion more, bringing the overall cost closer to $5.94 billion.

The budget officer’s report is based on a similar program the Ontario government ran, using the average per-tree cost and adjusting for inflation over the 10-year planting period.

The tree-planting promise made during the 2019 federal election was part of a $3-billion, decade-long

THIS WAS MORE OF

A PR ... EXERCISE.

effort aimed at managing, conserving and restoring the country’s forests, grasslands and wetlands.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, speaking Tuesday at an online event hosed by the World Economic Forum, linked the effort to the government’s promise for a green economic recovery and on job creation.

“Planting those trees is jobs too. And I have to say it also gets Canadians really excited. It gives people a personal hands-on investment in what it means to be building a green future,” she said.

The program was to take root this fiscal year, which closes at the end of March, but the government hadn’t budgeted any money for the effort and also chalked up delays to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The PBO report does come with a caveat that the estimates may not accurately reflect federal program costs.

Conservative environment critic Dan Albas suggested the figure for the government may actually be higher because the Liberals want to plant trees in urban centres, while the PBO report costs out what essentially is large-scale rural planting.

“Clearly, this was more of a PR, communications exercise, rather than a substantive policy to help with our environmental goals,” Albas said. “Either they have to cut their promise and only deliver a much smaller amount of trees or, second of all, they will have to double or more their budget for this program.”