Mr. Speaker, I believe that Canadians just need to look at our track record to recognize that healthy forests are a crucial part of our clean air future.
Early in the pandemic, we pledged $30 million to help small and medium-sized businesses, including tree-planting companies, to offset COVID-19-related health and safety measures.
This commitment is helping to protect workers and communities. It also supported the planting of 600 million trees during the 2020 planting season. Our government is also funding two separate programs that support the planting of 150 million new seedlings by 2022.
Finally, we also helped fund the Highway of Heroes tree campaign, which has already planted more than 750,000 of a planned two million trees between Toronto and Trenton, Ontario.