Hey Justin Trudeau, where are the 2 billion trees?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited downtown Vancouver this week on the heels of his government’s latest announcement. The Liberals have pledged to dramatically curb emissions in the oil, gas, and transportation sectors by 45% by 2030.

Image: Government of Canada

We have eight years to tackle an ambitious goal. Can we do it? Well, that’s not what this article is about.

Trudeau’s announcement got us thinking about another promise he made with a 2030 deadline, one he made during the 2019 campaign, and it involved a lot of trees.

Two billion trees to be exact!

To solidify his government’s promise to plant two billion trees by 2030, the Liberals re-affirmed the promise in the 2020 Throne Speech. So, with eight years to go, how many trees have the Liberal government planted and how many do they have left?

According to a Global News article from December 2021, the Liberals have only planted 8.5 million trees of the 2 billion promised. Some back of the napkin math would indicate that with only 0.4% of the goal achieved, the Liberals have 1,991,500,000 trees left.

Furthermore, with eight years left (roughly 2922 days) that means 681,554 trees need to be planted per day. If we estimate a typical planter works sixteen hours a day, that would again mean that 43,000 trees need to be planted every hour of everyday (including Christmas and New Year’s) to satisfy the 2019 campaign promise.

While we don’t know what the Prime Minister’s obsession with 2030 is just yet, we encourage everyone to dig a little deeper the next time the Liberals introduce an action item with a due date.

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