If Transportation Minister Todd Stone could pry his nose out of his talking points manual, he might learn something genuine about the pain of the real people for whom he’s responsible from the latest report from the Ferry Advisory Committee.

That’s the far-from-radical consultation group set up almost 25 years ago in cooperation with local governments, the Islands Trust and First Nations to provide feedback from 13 ferry-dependent communities along the entire British Columbia coast.

The report makes for grim reading despite a determinedly up-beat response praising the recent announcement that further increases in ferry fares will be capped at 1.9 per cent until 2016. That cap, of course, came after a scheduled four per cent increase kicked on April Fool’s Day.

One of the more interesting points in the report is its challenge to the minister’s concept of “sustainability” for the ferry service. The term, the advisory group points out, is pilfered from environmental science by governments that through ignorance or cynicism distort its meaning.

Sustainability refers to the ability of systems and processes to endure.

“We hear it referred to in terms of sustainability of the coastal ferry services as if BC Ferries is in danger of no longer ‘enduring’,” the report says. “This seems to us like wondering if UBC or BC Transit or VGH or the Coquihalla Highway will ‘endure’.”

Well, of course those components of provincial infrastructure will endure. They are such vital elements of broad community infrastructure that much of the regional economy would not sustain their loss, so it’s inconceivable any government would permit their demise.

The ferry service is an equally vital element for the economic sustainability of coastal communities. And it’s that kind of sustainability — the ability of the coastal economy to sustain communities, many of which predate the creation of the province itself — which is damaged by attempting to recover all costs of the ferry service from users.

Another mantra from the minister is that the ferry service is heavily subsidized. It’s not. It recovers 85 per of its costs from users. By comparison, Washington State Ferries recovers about 60 per cent and Alaska’s ferry service recovers about 25 per cent from fares.

“The ferry service is the lifeline for these communities,” the report says. “Over the past decade, we have seen the micro-economies of our once-vibrant communities slowly but steadily wither.

“We, and local business operators, believe the rapid rise of ferry fares to unprecedented and unaffordable levels (on 18 of BC Ferries’ 30 routes increases exceed 100 per cent and on six routes they exceed 150 per cent) is the primary cause of the decline of most of our local economies. While the communities will likely remain on the map, their economic sustainability is in grave danger.”

The report points out that the economies of these communities are largely driven by small, family-operated businesses — the country inns, local pubs, kayak rentals, coffee shops, bakeries, bed and breakfasts, small farms, artists and general stores that give them their rustic, self-reliant flavour and attract visitors.

But sky-high ferry fares deter visitors. Since 2004, when fares began to rise, ferry traffic on routes serving these communities has fallen steadily and in an accelerating downward curve. In 2014, both passenger and vehicle traffic was down 14 per cent, virtually all of it discretionary travel. On the northern route, the decline was “a shocking 25 per cent for vehicles and 31 per cent for passengers.”