QUALICUM BEACH — There was sarcasm, skepticism and dismay when municipal leaders from up and down the coast aired concerns Friday during a special session on ferry service.

Delegates to the annual conference of the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities vented grievances about the impact of rising fares and reduced service on the ferry routes that serve their cities, towns and villages.

Powell River might lose its hockey team because visitors can’t afford the ferry fares, they were told.

Nurses on night shifts can’t get to and from work because of schedule changes — and things are only going to get worse.

Dave Petryk, the president and CEO of Tourism Vancouver Island said ferry traffic on the Inside Passage route from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert has declined sharply — and most of it is tourist traffic.

The Island, he told mayors, councillors and regional district officials, accounts for 22 per cent of the province’s tourism market.

Another delegate from Gibsons warned that the impact is as significant for residents as it is for the tourism industry. She said that food prices on the Sunshine Coast are now 15 per cent higher than they are in the Metro Vancouver area.

Jim Abrams, chair of the Strathcona Regional District, called for the province to end its experiment with BC Ferries.

“Put this back into the provincial highway system,” he said. “They need to understand we are part of the provincial economy and we need to be treated fairly.”

Tony Law, chairman of a community ferry advisory committee and member of the Islands Trust for Hornby Island, warned that the system is headed for disaster.

He said that while the ferry commissioner had recommended keeping fares at the rate of inflation, they had instead been increasing at twice the rate with ridership decreasing.

”What we predicted is happening,” he said. “The shortfall in revenue is

going to be two or three times the savings from cutting service.”

Almost two-thirds of businesses surveyed for the association worry that the provincial government’s ferry policy will have serious negative impacts on employment across the region.

And 57 per cent said there will be negative impacts on business revenue, particularly those serving the tourist and recreation sectors vital to the region’s economic health.

The survey was released at Friday’s annual meeting of the association, which is made up of more than 50 municipalities and regional districts across a region that includes Vancouver Island, the Sunshine Coast, the Gulf Islands, the central coast, Haida Gwaii and the north coast.

The report says it was not able to quantify the actual size of economic impacts in dollar terms because of time constraints and unavailability of data, but that “there is broadly based concern about the likely impacts the reduced sailing schedules will create.”

The economic impact study reported that while there had been robust growth in population and residential property values from 2001 to 2006 across 14 sample communities on the Gulf Islands, Vancouver Island and the mainland, after 2006 there were sharp declines.