It is with the utmost…

It is with the utmost emphasis that I encourage you not to cancel Ontario's Cap and Trade system.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has this week re-emphasized the importance of a concerted and aggressive approach to mitigating the emissions of greenhouse gases, and the efficacy of carbon pricing to achieve this goal has been acknowledged by the Nobel Prize in Economics being awarded to William Nordhaus and Paul Romer. Both of these individuals expound the effectiveness of carbon pricing over regulatory alternatives.

Far better than a imposed carbon tax, which the Federal Government is constitutionally empowered to foist on wayward Provinces, the Cap and Trade Act was designed to funnel the revenues into programs that both help Ontario residents and reduce emissions. The nation-leading economy in California is evidence enough that participation in a carbon pricing market is not at odds with economic well-being.

Carbon pricing is not a scam - as evidenced by the well-deserved recognition by the Nobel Committee - and the Cap and Trade Act is not a boondoggle; they represent a sincere attempt to ensure that the economy that this government espouses to prioritize continues within an ecosystem that can sustain it. After all, there are no jobs on a dead planet.