Thank you very much.
Hello everyone. Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. My presentation will be in English, but if you have any questions in French, I will be very happy to answer them in French.
Please note that I'll be sharing my time with Ms. Dorothy Dobbie.
I want to start by thanking you, Mr. Chair, and all the honourable members of the committee, for letting us speak to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.
My name is Michael Rosen, and for the past five years I've been president of Tree Canada. I'm here with Dorothy, who is the past chair of Tree Canada. Some of you may recognize her as a former member of Parliament from Manitoba.
Tree Canada is a not-for-profit organization that is committed to creating greener healthier communities by encouraging planting and the care of trees where Canadians live, work, and play. We're one of the only organizations that represent urban forests on a national level.
Can you imagine your community without any trees? Trees define your community. They make our lives as Canadians that much more liveable.
Tree Canada has planted more than 78 million trees, greened 530 schoolyards, and helped the urban forest programs of over 490 communities across the country, leaving a legacy that will benefit all Canadians. We manage over 300 tree planting events each year. We've probably held a planting event in every riding that you members represent. On our website, for instance, we have a wonderful picture of the Elmwood—Transcona riding.
I am very happy to say that we were in the Beauharnois—Salaberry riding two weeks ago, with CSX, a rail transportation company.
When we began in 1992, we were very reliant on the Canadian Forest Service and Natural Resources Canada for our funding. We're very proud that 20 years later we're 100% privately funded and we're growing every year.
We have teamed up with some of the best funding partners in Canada: Shell, TD Bank, TELUS, and Home Hardware, to name a few, all of whom share our vision of an urban forest strategy. You may be asking yourself: What is an urban forest, let alone an urban forest strategy?
The urban forest is the forest where we all live, work, and play. It's in our backyard, our front yard, in our ravines, in the mall parking lots, and in our parks. It's by the river, by the office building. It's by the post office; it's on the street corner.
Today, more than 80% of Canadians live in the urban landscape. The trees and plants of this landscape are for many Canadians their deepest connection to nature.
Whose job is it to nurture these living green giants of our cities? In Canada, more often than not, it's the municipality's responsibility. At the provincial and federal levels, few laws or regulations govern the urban forest, except in the case of specific problems, insect outbreaks, or threats.
Many communities have professional foresters. Some work with agencies to manage public spaces, but in many cases the person in charge of maintaining the hockey rink or the golf course is in charge of the community's trees.
The new norm is for municipalities to receive funding for their urban forest projects from not-for-profit organizations like the Tree Canada Foundation, and programs like TD Green Streets that we've developed with TD Friends of the Environment. Why is this? Where is the government's involvement?
Would you believe that Canada is the only G-8 country without a federal urban forest presence or program? For example, the United States, our largest trading partner, and closest fossil fuel polluter, has for some time understood the importance of an urban forest conservation strategy.
In 2011 President Obama announced that he wanted to engage more communities in urban forestry and budgeted $36 million to implement an urban forest strategy.
I am not saying that Canada is doing nothing. The Canadian Forest Service has been a world leader in combatting the emerald ash borer. It's a destructive insect that was first detected in Canada in 2002, and it has killed thousands of ash trees.
Recently we held our 10th Canadian Urban Forest Conference in London, Ontario. We brought together 400 foresters and community people who work all across Canada to share their knowledge and their research.
Corning out of this was a number of initiatives to help our forests. Many municipalities are only now developing an inventory of what they have in their communities. To do this, they have to have some technical background. With the support of the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, through the leadership of the chief of the forest service, Thomas Tidwell, some municipalities are actually conducting what they call i-Tree analyses. It's a software suite that allows municipalities to evaluate the trees in their communities.
At our urban forest conference this year, to everyone's surprise, Chief Tidwell launched i-Tree Canada. Yes, our American government counterpart created a software for Canadian municipalities.
All is not negative, though. I am proud that our government has made the courageous and historic decision to make Rouge Park Canada's first national urban forest. It is a great first step, but it really is a small first step.
The Government of Canada must commence a dialogue on a national urban forest strategy or it will continue to fall far behind its international partners and prejudice the environmental health of Canadians.
I would like to turn it over to Ms. Dobbie.