Norway offers a striking contrast to British Columbia. In 2026, the two jurisdictions have almost identical populations — about 5.6 million people — yet Norway has built a sovereign wealth fund valued at roughly C$3.1 trillion.

Norway created that wealth by treating petroleum resources as public assets and capturing a large share of the profits for citizens through royalties, taxation, and public ownership. Rather than spending all of the revenue immediately, much of it was invested through the Government Pension Fund Global, which now owns investments around the world and generates continuing income for future generations.

If that wealth is divided equally among Norwegians, each citizen’s share is about C$550,000. With an average household size of roughly 2.1 people, the implied share for a typical family is about C$1.15 million.

The comparison inevitably raises questions for citizens of British Columbia. This province possesses enormous natural resources, including natural gas, forests, and minerals. Yet instead of building a comparable public savings fund, governments have generally chosen low royalty structures, limited public ownership, and policies focused on encouraging rapid private extraction.

The result is stark. Norway converted temporary fossil fuel wealth into permanent public wealth. British Columbia largely allowed resource wealth to flow outward to corporations and shareholders, many of them foreign-owned, while leaving future generations with relatively little accumulated financial benefit.

Critics of the Norwegian comparison often argue that circumstances differ: Norway discovered offshore oil at an ideal moment, had a strong social-democratic tradition, and maintained unusually disciplined fiscal policies. All true. But the broader lesson remains difficult to ignore: resource-rich societies can choose whether natural wealth primarily enriches private interests in the short term or citizens collectively over the long term.

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