City hall dreams of federal cash with the same pent-up desire that consumes Canadian hockey fans, longing for the Stanley Cup to finally come home. That is why this year alone we will plant 180,000 trees, mainly across northern sections of our city, following an earlier $61-million grant from the feds. However, many of those trees will subsequently die a slow death, and that does not matter as long as administration gets its hands on the money.
In some ways, that is fair enough. After all, Calgarians probably contribute more money per capita to the national coffers than other Canadians, compared to what we get in return. So, if there is a chance for a little windfall, why not grab it with both hands?
But planting trees in Calgary is not just a matter of sticking a sapling in the ground and adding water. It is an unforgiving endeavour, and unless the city has a long-term plan to make sure these new trees survive and thrive, we are headed for failure.
Sadly, ignoring reality often seems a prerequisite at city hall. When Ottawa offered buckets of cash to municipalities to solve a problem the feds created by opening the door to mass immigration without enough homes, Calgarians awoke to find our single-family neighbourhoods no longer safe from rampant rezoning. It took a valiant protest movement and a bitter civic election to reverse that assault on our quality of life.
Now, it is another Justin Trudeau brainwave that has got city administration excited — his plan to plant two billion trees across Canada. Of course, it has been a financial disaster, and his successor, Prime Minister Mark Carney, axed it faster than a B.C. lumberjack. Still, there are residual millions previously pledged to be had, so it is “trees are us” once more.
Except this is the prairie, and trees are not easy here. If we had not been so intent on erasing our history, we would know this courtesy of Fort Calgary. The spruce and pine used in construction were felled in the mountains and then floated down the Elbow River. There was no ready lumber to be had back in 1875.
Being a stubborn lot, Calgarians persisted. Eventually, we did manage to grow enough that some of the city’s older areas are blessed with a reasonably decent canopy. It is still one of the smallest and lowest in the country among big cities. Not surprisingly, we love our trees, given how hard it has been to grow them.
Why is it so difficult? There are a bunch of reasons, but the biggest impediment is our regular chinook winds. Imagine sitting with your feet encased in ice and your head in the oven. Voila, you are a Calgary tree, where sudden warm temperatures wake you from a nice winter nap, causing the sap to rise while your roots remain frozen in the prairie tundra.
Simply planting trees and hoping for the best will end in failure. The city needs a comprehensive strategy that includes species selection suited to our climate, proper soil preparation, irrigation during dry spells, and ongoing maintenance. Without such a plan, the 180,000 trees planted this year will join the ranks of those that have perished before them, wasting taxpayer money and failing to deliver the environmental benefits we so desperately need.
