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Coastal ferry fares rocketed by nearly 10 times the rate of inflation even as the Liberal government was extracting more than half a billion dollars from the ferry corporation, a new report shows.

From 2003 to 2016, ferry fare increases vastly outstripped annual increases in the provincial cost of living index, says the Southern Gulf Islands Ferry Advisory Committee. It’s a committee representing 51 municipalities and regional districts that rely on ferries to connect them to the rest of B.C.

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Over that period, B.C.’s cost of living index rose 18 per cent. The minimum increase in fares on the most heavily used routes was 69 per cent, more than three times the inflation rate.

For travellers between the Lower Mainland and the Gulf Islands, the increase was more than five times the inflation rate. On some routes, the gap was even greater. Some fares increased by 164 per cent, about 9.1 times the rise in the cost of living index.