Canada nowhere near target of planting 2B trees by 2030
Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 20 Apr, 2023 10:15 AM
Canada's environment commissioner says the country is nowhere near to meeting its goal of planting two-billion trees by 2030.
The Liberals first made the massive tree-planting promise during the 2019 federal election campaign and followed through with a 10-year 3.2-billion-dollar budget for it in 2020.
However, an audit of the first two years of planting says it appears the government isn't on track to get even four per cent of the promised trees in the ground by the end of 2030.
Speakers at the meeting include members of the Competition Bureau, outside competition experts and company representatives including Rogers chief executive Tony Staffieri. The meeting comes a day after the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal by the Competition Bureau to overturn the Competition Tribunal's approval of the deal.
The goal is for Germany and its allies to provide Ukraine with 88 of the German-made Leopards, which would make up two battalions. While the Canadian Armed Forces has 112 Leopard 2s in a number of different variations, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declined to say this morning whether Canada will send any of them to Ukraine.
The prime minister announced the planned meeting during a news conference Wednesday morning in Hamilton, Ont., where the Liberal cabinet is finishing a three-day retreat ahead of the return of Parliament next week.
Experts have compared this year's snowpack, with a weak layer of sugar-like crystals buried near the bottom, to that of 2003, when avalanches in Western Canada killed 29 people, most of them in B.C. Five people have died in three B.C. avalanches so far this January.
Forests Minister Bruce Ralston says the goal is to build a stronger, more resilient forest industry with value-added products such as mass timber, plywood, veneer, panelling and flooring. The statement says the program will be restricted to those facilities that have minimal or no forestry tenure and are approved as a value-added manufacturer.
A 29-year-old woman was walking on the sidewalk westbound along Edmonds Street, just before Griffiths Drive, shortly before noon when a man jogging towards her briefly stopped in front of her. The man did not say anything to the victim, but allegedly pushed her with both hands, causing her to fall to the ground.