Tree Ottawa Launches With Overwhelming Candidate Support - A Million Trees to Celebrate Canada’s 150th Anniversary

Tree Ottawa, an ambitious plan to plant one million trees in Ottawa as a gift to Canada for its 150

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anniversary, will be launched today at 9:30am in Champlain Park. Ecology Ottawa also released this morning a new report that shows overwhelming support among city council candidates for the million tree goal.

The official launch of the Tree Ottawa initiative starts at 9:30am today (October 14

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) with the planting of an oak tree in Champlain Park. Special guests such as founding sponsor RBC’s Regional President Tina Sarellas, FIFA

Women’s World Cup local representative Kristina Kiss, the Mayor of Ottawa, and Chris Henderson, Tree Ottawa Champion will speak at the event.

“Within the next 3 to 5 years, Ottawa will lose millions of trees due to climate change, urban expansion and the Emerald Ash Borer infestation,” said Velta Tomsons, Tree Ottawa Organizer with Ecology Ottawa. “Trees provide shade, habitat, noise barriers, food and beauty, and Tree Ottawa is about doing everything we can to protect and promote our natural heritage.”

Ecology Ottawa also released this morning a survey of city council candidates that shows that 91 percent of respondents fully support the one million tree objective. Full election surveys (both as individual “tree” and “water” reports as well as answers to all Ecology Ottawa surveys organized by ward) can be found here: [ http://ecologyottawa.ca/2014/

10/03/election-reports/ ](http://ecologyottawa.ca/2014/10/03/election-reports/) “These reports show that city council candidates are ready to rally around ambitious action to plant more trees, take better care of existing trees and protect our rivers,” said Graham Saul, Executive Director of Ecology Ottawa.