Millson Forestry Service is scrambling to find a buyer for 260,000 red and white pine seedlings now that the province has cancelled funding for Ontario’s 50 Million Tree Program.

Those seedlings were destined for that tree program.

Millson finds itself in the same boat as other greenhouse operators across the province who were in the midst of growing hundreds of thousands of seedlings for this program, and have now been told they are no longer needed.

“To have seedlings in the system so you have trees to plant, they are started two to three years ahead of time,” Millson explained. “So, in our greenhouses, we have trees that we started this winter and they would be scheduled to plant in three years for the program. But now that it’s cancelled, there’s no need for them.”

Millson said they are potentially facing a loss.

“There were another 200,000 seedlings that I was scheduled to seed in May that I have the materials for which have been cancelled as well. So there are material costs. Some of them have labour costs associated with them. Some of them I have been growing since February. There are heating costs associated with that and I need to know if there is somebody who is going to be able to buy the trees and use them or if I have to cut my losses now and get rid of them,” said Millson.

“There are a few of us sitting with trees and I’m not sure what’s going to happen to them. It’s a shame because that’s a lot of trees. Work has gone into them and it would be nice to see them planted as opposed to plowed under or tossed out.”

Forestry companies in the area are not likely to be in the market for red and white pine seedlings as they are not suited to the clay-like soil conditions and climate of Northern Ontario.

“They are seed zones for Southern Ontario,” explained Millson. “A lot of these seedlings (produced for the program) did get planted in Southern Ontario because that’s where there is a lot of area that is not forested.

“Up here, we have a lot of forests and the forest industry takes care of regenerating the areas where they harvest.

“Right now, I’m trying to find other uses for them. They’re in mini-trays so I have to transplant them in the next month; otherwise they’re going to be too big for the trays.”

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry told Forests Ontario the day after the Progressive Conservative government delivered its budget two weeks ago that the 50 Million Tree Program was being eliminated.

The program’s annual budget was about $4.7 million and Forests Ontario was told it was being cancelled as a way to cut provincial costs.

MPP Gilles Bisson (NDP – Timmins), said companies that supplied seedlings to this program have been hung out to dry by.

“Here, you’ve got people like Millson’s Forestry who have spent the money in order to fulfil a contract. And what you’ve got is the Government of Ontario saying, ‘We’re going to cancel the contract midway through and put them out of pocket,’” said Bisson.

“That’s not the way you do business. You don’t attract business in Ontario by cancelling contracts mid-term and making the person who is doing the contract, to suffer the consequence … It’s not the way you attract investment and confidence into Ontario.

“So for a government that says, ‘We’re the government that understands business and we’re going to get things going again,’ they are creating an unstable work environment. Why would you want to invest with that kind of thing going on?”

A spokesperson for Natural Resources and Forestry Minister John Yakabuski called the program an example of frivolous spending by the previous Liberal government. Spokesperson Justine Lewkowicz said the program duplicates the work of the forestry industry, which already plants 68 million trees in the province each year without provincial funds.

Bisson said the government is trying to justify its decision by citing about a “totally different program.”

Forestry companies in Ontario are required under the Sustainable Forest Licence to replant on Crown land areas that have been harvested.

“They’re two different things altogether,” said Bisson. “This other program was for private land.”

Under the program, private landowners would present a forest management plan and apply to have their land reforested at a subsized cost.

“You applied and there were so many trees provided a year,” said Bisson. “They’d look at flood mitigation, erosion control and choose the ones which made the most sense.

“It’s not the same thing.”