Perth County stewardship intake oversubscribed again as council debates program’s future

Perth County council received the results of the spring 2026 intake for the Perth County Stewardship Program on March 5, with demand for the grant program once again exceeding available funding even as some councillors continued to question whether the county’s annual contribution could be better spent elsewhere.

According to a report from Warden Dean Trentowsky, who also serves as chair of the county’s agricultural working group, and county resiliency and stewardship coordinator Hannah Cann, the spring 2026 intake drew 33 applications across three of the program’s four grant streams. Together, those applications represent 8,084 trees and shrubs proposed for planting, 20 acres of restoration and nearly 10.3 kilometres of windbreak, with a combined project value of more than $235,000. The total grant request came to more than $119,000, roughly 19.5 per cent above the program’s 2026 budget.

This year’s intake included applications in the landowner, community and living snow fence streams, while no applications were received in the woodland stream for forest-management plans. The four available streams this year included grants for private landowners planting 50 or more trees and shrubs, forest-management plans, community-led restoration and tree-sale projects, and living snow fences planted along rural roads to reduce drifting snow.

The landowner stream accounted for the bulk of applications and funding requests, with 21 applications requesting just over $65,300. The community stream received 10 applications requesting about $42,200, while the two living snow fence applications requested nearly $12,000 combined. In total, county staff said the projects would plant 6,383 trees through the landowner stream, 1,441 through the community stream and 260 through the living snow fence stream.

The agricultural working group recommended the two living snow fence applications be funded in full because of their public-safety benefits along roadways, with the remaining landowner and community stream applications funded on a prorated basis to stay within the $100,000 envelope. That approach would reduce grant awards in those two streams by roughly 15 to 19 per cent, similar to the approach taken when the program was oversubscribed in 2024.

Staff also noted there was strong uptake across delivery methods. Of the applications received, nine used conservation-authority planting services, 12 used private contractors and 12 involved volunteers or landowners planting the projects themselves. Seventeen applications sourced trees through a conservation authority, 12 through contractors and four through nurseries.

The greatest number of applications came from West Perth, which accounted for 15 submissions, followed by North Perth with seven, Perth East with six and Perth South with five. Staff said that pattern is consistent with previous intakes and many applications continue to come from sub-watersheds identified as high-priority restoration areas.

Council discussed the intake results in closed session after a wider discussion about the value of the stewardship program itself in open session.

That broader conversation followed concerns raised earlier this budget season by Coun. Rhonda Ehgoetz and current deputy warden Sue Orr, who asked for a review of the program, budgeted at $100,000 this year, to determine whether those funds could be used more effectively elsewhere in the county budget.

Those concerns echoed questions raised last fall, when Ehgoetz argued the county may be duplicating services already offered through the local conservation authorities and suggested council needed to take a hard look at the program during budget deliberations. Orr similarly expressed concern at that time about opening the spring 2026 intake before council had fully debated the program’s future.

“Some external grant programs offer grants for stewardship action similar to the Perth County Stewardship Program … however important limitations become clear upon closer review,” Cann told council while delivering an overview of the program March 5. “Many programs are geographically restricted and apply only to certain or specific conservation authority boundaries or select areas of the county. Others are limited to agricultural operations, excluding non-farmers or rural landowners who are interested in tree planting and land stewardship. Minimum project sizes often two acres or more create additional barriers, particularly for small- and medium-scale projects where the community impact can be significant.”

Additionally, Cann said some funding programs require environmental farm plans, creating additional administrative burden for applicants, while many of the available programs have short or unpredictable application windows with inconsistent annual availability and often long and onerous application packages.

“The (Perth County) Stewardship Program provides stability, reliability and ease of access where these grants fall short,” Cann continued. “Stewardship projects delivered by the county benefit from the local knowledge, established relationships and an understanding of the land and community context. … Applicants to (the program) are eligible to stack external grant funds with the county grant up to 100 per cent of project costs. … Allowing landowners to stack grant funds across multiple grants enables them to do more stewardship action with less barriers.”

At the March 5 meeting, Cann presented a broader defence of the program, outlining both its origins and its results to date. Created after county council directed staff in 2022 to develop a clean-water project, the stewardship program was broadened through consultations in 2023 into a wider environmental-stewardship initiative. Tree planting emerged as the top priority during that consultation process, which included more than 270 residents and stakeholders, 160 survey responses and more than 30 structured interviews.

Staff’s comprehensive report says the program has now planted 28,429 trees, restored 51.31 acres, established 43 kilometres of windbreak and generated $724,478 in total project value in its first three years. The report also states the county has leveraged $2 in outside or private investment for every $1 it has committed to the program, and estimates supported tree planting is offsetting about 10.45 per cent of the county’s operational emissions.

“I think this is a remarkable report,” Coun. Todd Kasenberg said. “I’m excited by a number of the results that are being documented here and appreciative of the investments that we’ve made. I have argued, of course, for some time that we need to make more of these investments. … How do we move from a program that largely focuses on tree and forest health … into a clean-water program … given that in our regional neighbourhood, we seem to be the ones without a named clean-water program?”

“It was always the intention of the program to start with a tree-planting offering because they were the most requested by the public,” Cann replied. “That being said, based on the funding available, there was always going to be an expansion of grant streams offered as more funds became available.”

With several new grant streams expected to come online as early as next year, Cann said the county could begin offering opportunities for funding aimed at supporting projects that address drinking-water protection, water quality and aquatic habitat, erosion control and invasive species management among others.

“I think this program needs to have adjustments to it,” Ehgoetz said during the council discussion. “I don’t mind giving money to people planting trees; I have a real problem giving my taxpayers’ money to people to dig the hole, get the ground ready and everything else. They can do that if they want. … We’re not (planting as many trees as we can) because we’re giving them all this money to do that.”

In response, Cann told council the county had removed labour as an eligible cost supported by the program for 2025, however that led to 20 applications from conservation authorities alone being rejected. While labour was restored as an eligible cost for 2026 based on public feedback, Cann said the damage was already done with some potential applicants choosing not to apply for funding this year.

Coun. Walter McKenzie agreed with the notion of adjusting the program slightly, specifically when it comes to paying for the costs associated with delivering trees to successful applicants from nurseries or other suppliers located outside the county. He noted, however, that many residents don’t have the time or expertise to plant trees themselves, and suggested labour-cost eligibility is an important part of the stewardship program.

“I feel that the (conservation authorities) do an excellent job of stewardship and they’re really serious about getting trees in the ground,” said Orr. “It’s more effective to go directly through them. Ausable Bayfield (Conservation Authority); there was an advertisement that they’ve planted a million trees – that’s 50,000 trees a year since 2006. I think there should be effort to work directly with the conservation authorities.”