- The best market-based way…

Dear Sirs/Madam,

I'm horrified with the proposal to cancel Cap and Trade. This is not a savings for the people, it will actually harm us and our economy in the long run:

- The best market-based way to reduce greenhouse gases is a price on carbon, either a direct tax or a cap-and-trade system. In both cases, the government can return the income it earns to the people, so it is not a “tax grab”. And the whole point is for businesses and individuals to take steps to reduce their carbon emissions so they don’t have to pay it.

- Ontario's Cap and Trade system, linked with Quebec and California, has brought about $3 billion into our province in its first 1 1/2 years and was paying for actions that further reduce greenhouse gas emissions - like upgrades to buildings, rebates for electric cars, and incentives for innovation. Eliminating the Cap & Trade program has already had a negative impact on the economy in the form of the loss of local contractor jobs supported by home energy retrofit programs. The resulting class action suits that the Province of Ontario is/or will be fighting, will be making money only for lawyers, which tax payers will ultimately pay for.

However, a recent paper (reported in Huffington Post - https://bit.ly/2zM1Wp6) says that if humanity dramatically reduces greenhouse gases within the next 3 years, the resulting “grand economic transformation could bring a $26 trillion economic windfall, create 65 million new jobs, and avoid 700,000 early deaths linked to air pollution.” We in Ontario should be leading the way towards these economic benefits, not dragging our heels and being left in the dust.

Please rethink this, and don't cancel this bill as an idea of saving tax payers money. It's doing quite the opposite and when we are all losing our homes to environmental disasters, our grandchildren don't have uncontaminated air to breathe or clean water to drink, who will be caring about saving a little bit of money on taxes. We need to create new businesses that are based on clean energy and our healthy future and we will make money, just a different way. And this was what the Cap and Trade plan was already proving to be doing.

Thank you.