I do not think it's wise to…

I do not think it's wise to remove bikes lanes. The provincial government should not be concerned with making drivers' lives marginally easier at the cost at of everyone else in the city, instead they should be focused on making transit options more viable - making them more accessible, more frequent, more enticing.
The logic would and should be that the more people you have using public transit, the less cars there would be on the road, removing gridlock and making room on the road for those that need to drive into the city.
The majority of the people in downtown cores can easily access amenities they need through walking and public transit - therefore it makes no sense to waste taxpayer money to remove something a good amount of people use, and if protected they are protected bike lanes, they can keep people safe, too.
Something to think on - if you only have one lane to drive in, you can't have impatient drivers weaving in and out of lanes potentially causing an accident that leads to more gridlock.
There are solutions available, I do not think this proposal is one of them. The province should not be intervening in a municipality's decision on infrastructure especially when I've watched a certain premiere in a news clip riding his bike and stating how unsafe it felt to be sharing the road with downtown drivers, that bike lanes are the way to go. They have an entire province to take care of and there are higher priorities to be addressed.