I think this is a…

I think this is a fundamentally wrong-headed approach. We need MORE tools to combat, mitigate, and adapt to the changing climate, not fewer!
In a 2014 opinion piece, Preston Manning himself proposed that "for any economic activity, especially the production of energy, we should identify its negative environmental impacts, devise measures to avoid, mitigate or adapt to those impacts, and include the costs of those measures in the price of the product. It's the idea behind using carbon pricing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions." Cap-and-trade is exactly such a market-based approach to reducing greenhouse gases, while financing our shift to renewable sources of energy, which has the potential for growing our economy.
The matter is urgent. This past weekend the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new report stating that we need "unprecedented political commitment" between now and the year 2030 to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or our world will not be able to avoid the most drastic impacts of climate change. And these will be economic impacts, as well as biological ones. A 2017 report from the Bank of Canada projected that climate change would cost the Canadian economy more than $20 billion annually by the 2050's, unless we reduce our carbon footprints. Already, climate change is costing Canada's economy billions in terms of response to disasters such as wildfires and flooding, insurance payouts, damage to infrastructure, and lost agricultural productivity.
Cancelling one of the best tools we have to mitigate this foreseeable loss is the very definition of financial and governmental irresponsibility. Ontarians have a right to expect our government to take care of our economy and our resources, not to jeopardize them. I urge your government to retain the cap-and-trade program, or if you must cancel it, to replace it with something which will do even more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario. Thank you.