Government Files is The Canada Report's public-records analysis series examining government documents obtained through Canada's Access to Information (ATI) and provincial Freedom of Information (FOI) laws. These transparency laws allow members of the public to request internal government records from federal and provincial institutions. This article reviews documents released through those processes and summarizes what the records contain and what they show. While we strive for accuracy, this article represents an analysis and interpretation of the source material. For complete accuracy and full context, readers should review the original documents, which are available in full below.
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The federal government committed up to $38.8 million to New Brunswick to plant nearly 54 million trees on provincial Crown land, under a 2 Billion Trees Program contribution agreement that was expanded by a formal amendment just over a week before Ottawa announced it was winding the program down. Combined with New Brunswick's matching share, the agreement puts a total of $76.6 million behind tree planting and habitat restoration in the province through to 2031.
The records were released by Natural Resources Canada under Access to Information request A-2025-00595. They contain the original Canada–New Brunswick non-repayable contribution agreement signed in March 2024, the underlying Agreement-in-Principle, and Amendment No. 1 — signed by New Brunswick on October 16, 2025 and by Canada on October 24, 2025, days before the federal budget that scrapped the program's headline goal.
What the Documents Show
The original agreement, executed in March 2024, set out a federal contribution capped at $35,805,898 toward a single "Tree Planting Stream." The stated objective was to plant 52,920,000 climate-resilient trees on provincial Crown land, with New Brunswick leveraging its existing silviculture framework and passing the money through to "Ultimate Recipients" — its timber licensees — to expand nursery capacity, prepare planting sites, collect seed, grow seedlings and plant trees. New Brunswick agreed to match the federal money dollar-for-dollar, bringing the original total project cost to $71,611,796.
Amendment No. 1 changed the shape of the deal. It added a second activity, the "Habitat Restoration Stream," funded to plant an additional 875,000 long-lived, shade-tolerant trees aimed at restoring habitat for species at risk in disturbed parcels of protected land by 2031. That stream carries its own $3,000,000 budget and a higher federal cost-share — 60 percent for habitat restoration, compared with the standard 50 percent for tree planting. The amendment lifted Canada's maximum contribution to $38,805,898 and the total project cost to $76,611,796.
The federal money is spread unevenly across the eight-year eligible period, which runs from April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2031. The bulk of it is front-loaded: the agreement allocates $1,913,672 in 2023-24 and a peak of $13,171,332 in 2024-25, tapering down to roughly $2.9 million in each of the final three fiscal years. The amended budget shows the habitat restoration dollars only beginning to flow in 2025-26, starting at $36,000 and rising to about $592,800 annually.
The project is structured around nine tasks, from nursery expansion (due December 31, 2028) through site selection, seed collection, seedling development, planting, vegetation management and a final round of plantation cleaning and monitoring, both due March 31, 2031. New Brunswick's deadline to complete the project is March 31, 2031, with a final claim for payment due no later than May 31, 2031.
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A Deal Signed Just as the Program Was Ending
The timing in the records is the most striking detail. New Brunswick's Minister of Natural Resources, Hon. John Herron, signed the amendment on October 16, 2025. Glenn Hargrove, Assistant Deputy Minister of the Canadian Forest Service, signed for Canada on October 24, 2025. Less than two weeks later, on November 4, 2025, the federal budget announced the government would wind down the 2 Billion Trees Program, having scaled back its target from two billion trees to roughly one billion.
Budget 2025 stated that existing contribution agreements and commitments would be honoured even as the program stopped accepting new applications. New Brunswick's agreement — freshly amended and expanded the same month — is exactly the kind of signed commitment that survives the wind-down. The records do not address the budget decision; the agreement predates the public announcement and is silent on the program's future. But read against that backdrop, the documents capture a province locking in and enlarging its federal funding in the program's final weeks.
This sits alongside a broader retreat from Trudeau-era climate commitments, a pattern The Canada Report has tracked in resignations from Ottawa's climate advisory body amid the policy shift.
Where the Money Goes
The agreement breaks the federal contribution into eligible expenditure categories. In the original budget, the largest line was facilities at $15,712,500, followed by contractors for tree planting and silviculture at $13,805,898, materials and supplies at $4,605,000, and machinery and equipment at $1,682,500. Overhead is capped at 15 percent of eligible expenditures.
The funding flows through New Brunswick to its timber licensees rather than being spent directly by the province. New Brunswick is required to sign agreements with these Ultimate Recipients, solicit and approve their sub-project proposals, and conduct oversight, audits and evaluation. The agreement specifies that intellectual property arising from the work vests in New Brunswick, and that Canada receives a free, royalty-free licence to make resulting reports publicly available for non-commercial governmental purposes.
The documents also draw a firm line around what the planting is not meant to do. The Agreement-in-Principle states that 2BT projects will not influence New Brunswick's allowable annual cut, will not be used to generate increased harvesting, and must be incremental — that is, planting that is not already required under any law, regulation or permit, and that would not occur under business-as-usual regeneration after harvest. Costs related to the production, sale or export of softwood lumber are explicitly ineligible.
The Habitat Restoration Add-On
The 875,000-tree habitat restoration component added by the amendment is narrower and more conservation-focused than the main planting stream. According to the revised Schedule A, it targets reforestation of areas that were formerly forested and now sit in protected areas, restoration of disturbed forest sites in protected areas not currently contributing to biodiversity conservation, reforestation of land deforested through mining activity, and restoration of disturbed sites to support habitat for species at risk.
The province frames the benefits as creating sanctuaries, supporting flood mitigation and erosion control in wetland areas, improving wetland health and natural filtration for local drinking water sources, and adding habitat for hunted animals. The higher 60 percent federal cost-share for this stream — versus 50 percent for the tree planting stream — reflects its conservation orientation rather than commercial silviculture.
What's Not in the Documents
The release is the agreement package itself — the contract, its schedules, the Agreement-in-Principle and the amendment. It does not include progress reports, claims for payment, or any record of how many trees have actually been planted to date or how much money has flowed. The agreement requires annual progress reports and a final report within 90 days of completion, but none of those reporting documents are in this release.
That means the records establish what New Brunswick committed to and what Canada agreed to pay, but not how the project is performing. Federal program-level reporting has shown the Provinces and Territories funding stream lagging its targets, and the budget's decision to honour existing agreements rather than expand them suggests the broader picture is one of scaled-back ambition. Whether New Brunswick's 53.8 million combined trees materialise by 2031 is not something these documents can answer.
New Brunswick has separately leaned on federal partnerships and outside agreements to deliver provincial priorities, a recurring theme in its dealings with Ottawa and beyond, as seen in its recruitment agreement with Indonesia to address its health-care shortage.
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Support Government FilesAll figures and details referenced are from the Canada–New Brunswick 2 Billion Trees Program non-repayable contribution agreement and Amendment No. 1, released by Natural Resources Canada under Access to Information request A-2025-00595. The records contain the signed agreement, its schedules, the Agreement-in-Principle and the October 2025 amendment.
