OTTAWA — Parks Canada is proposing new lockage fees for the Rideau Canal that would nearly triple the cost of a boat trip from Ottawa to Kingston.

Canal users greeted the huge fee increases, posted to Parks Canada’s website late Friday, with fury and consternation. If they proceed, they warn, the new fees will effectively kill the canal, along with the hundreds of businesses and thousands of jobs it supports in Eastern Ontario.

And if that happens, the canal’s UNESCO world heritage designation could disappear as well, they say.

At present, boaters can purchase passes — ranging in length from a single day to the full season — that let them pass through canal locks for a single up-front price.

Parks Canada is proposing to scrap the pass system and replace it with a complex new ticket fee structure beginning in 2014. Under the new system, boaters would have to purchase between two and four tickets to pass through each lock station, depending on the number of locks it contains.

Each ticket would cost 30 cents per foot of a boat’s length. So, for example, a single ticket for a 30-foot boat would cost $9, meaning the lockage fee would range from $18 and $36 for a vessel of that size. The fee would be less for smaller boats, but more for larger ones.

The new fee structure would raise the cost of travelling the full length of the canal by 287 per cent. The owner of a 20-foot boat now pays $93 in lockage fees for the Ottawa-to-Kingston trip, but would pay $360 under Parks Canada’s proposal. For owners of 40-foot boats, the cost of a one-way trip would soar from the current $186 to $720.

The percentage increase would be even larger — more than 340 per cent — for boaters who now buy a season’s pass. The owner of a 25-foot boat can buy a season’s pass for $220. But the same boater would pay $975 for 130 tickets under the new system.

The fee increases apply to canoes and kayaks, as well, though they would need one fewer ticket to pass through a lock station than a power boat. Under the current system, those who want to paddle the full length of the canal can buy a transit pass for $74.40. If Parks Canada’s proposed fees are adopted, the cost would rise to $182.40 in 2014.

Boaters can save 25 per cent by purchasing 80 tickets in advance, or 10 per cent by buying lockage tickets online in advance.

Parks Canada is also proposing sharp increases in mooring fees. Effective this year, the overnight mooring fee would more than double to $2 a foot, and a new $1-a-foot fee would be imposed for daytime mooring.

All 3,300 fees that Parks Canada charges at its sites across the country have been frozen since 2008 and are being adjusted. The public has until Feb. 18 to provide comments. In future, increases will be tied to the rise in the Consumer Price Index.