At today’s exchange rate, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is worth roughly C$3.09 trillion — an extraordinary figure for a country with a population of about 5.6 million, very close to the population of British Columbia.

That works out to approximately C$546,000 per person.

The comparison with British Columbia is striking because both jurisdictions are resource-rich and have similar-sized populations, yet they chose very different approaches to managing fossil fuel wealth.

Norway heavily taxes petroleum production and channels much of the revenue into its sovereign wealth fund for long-term public benefit. The fund now owns stakes in thousands of companies worldwide and helps finance pensions and public services.

By contrast, British Columbia has steadily reduced the public share of natural gas revenues over the past two decades while expanding LNG and gas extraction. Bonus bid revenues from competitive bidding for gas rights have largely collapsed even as production has increased dramatically.