Believe it or not, in this case I look to our friends to the south. I look to the United States Forest Service. The United States has a forest service, as do we, the Canadian Forest Service.
The forest service in the U.S. treats urban forests no differently from any other sector in their forest code. They have three pillars. One is funding, and funding for community groups such as Trees for Life, Tree Canada, all the groups across Canada. The second pillar is science, having their scientists focus their work on the science of the urban forest. The third one is policies. In the United States, they fund and have policies directed at the state level.
If there's one thing the federal government could do, it would be to work with the provincial partners. In the United States, they have a state forester responsible for urban forests.