B.C.'s transportation minister is promising to fix a loophole that leaves TransLink with no way to force tens of thousands of fare evaders to pay their fines.

Of the 53,000 tickets issued in 2011, only 7,500 have been paid, meaning a loss of $7.7 million for TransLink. Officials acknowledged Tuesday that they have no recourse to get the remaining scofflaws to pay up. ICBC is responsible for collecting the fees, but the Crown corporation doesn't have enforcement authority, either.

Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom told reporters he wasn't aware of the issue and promised to find a solution.

"That is news to me," he said. "I've always believed that if you're going to have a law, enforce the law."

But Doug Kelsey, TransLink's COO, said that the transit authority has been in talks with the province for years to solve the problem.

"The discussions have been on and off for a period of time. I've had discussions back in 2010 on this," he said.

Kelsey said that an estimated 95 per cent of transit users do pay their fares, but TransLink would like a more reliable method of collecting fines from fare evaders. He suggested that interest charges and incentives for paying fines early might help.

He added that TransLink does have the power to issue 24-hour bans from SkyTrain stations and suggested that shame may be a deterrent to some would-be fare evaders.

"There's the public embarrassment that others have had, getting a ticket written by police as your peers walk by. We know that has been effective in the past," Kelsey said.

He said that the planned installation of fare gates at SkyTrain stations should help, but they won't erase the problem completely.

Just this week, provincial NDP leader Adrian Dix got to experience the public embarrassment of being singled out as a fare evader firsthand. He admitted he was caught on the SkyTrain without proof of payment, but said he misplaced a day pass he purchased earlier in the day.

The transit officer who stopped him chose not to levy the standard $173 ticket.

Jordan Bateman, the B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation, says that the lack of enforcement sends a message to fare evaders that there are no real consequences to their actions.

"I think fare evasion is going to go through the roof," he said.

"In a time when TransLink is looking for $1 billion in new taxation tools, to discover that they're not even collecting on the tickets they write for fare evasion -- it's stunning. It's been a long time in this job since I've been gobsmacked by something; this one left me speechless."

TransLink estimates that fare evasion costs the company more than $18 million a year.

Premier Christy Clark has already ordered an audit into TransLink's spending, hoping to find the $30 million needed to complete planned transit upgrades. Metro Vancouver mayors had asked for the right to impose possible vehicle levies or a new regional carbon tax, but the province was unreceptive to those ideas.