The Nordic country’s fund — now worth C$2.6 trillion — is explained at the Norges Bank Investment Management website:

The Government Pension Fund Global was established after Norway discovered oil in the North Sea. The fund was set up to shield the economy from ups and downs in oil revenue. It also serves as a financial reserve and as a long-term savings plan so that both current and future generations of Norway get to benefit from our oil wealth.

Each year, the Norwegian government can spend only a small part of the fund, but this still amounts to almost 20 percent of the government budget.

There is a broad political consensus on how the fund should be managed. The less we spend today, the better the position we will be in to deal with downturns and crises in the future. Budget surpluses are transferred to the fund, while deficits are covered with money from the fund. In other words, the authorities can spend more in hard times and less in good times.

Even our not-so-ancient ancestors needed only a basic understanding of small quantities. About 100 years ago, settlers in North Vancouver’s Deep Cove paid $15 for an unserviced lot near the waterfront. The Bank of Canada says that’s about $260 in today’s dollars. The BC Assessment Authority calculates that same site is worth $1.2 million today.

Amounts in the trillions are almost beyond our comprehension, but we may better understand Norway’s financial situation by looking at the oil and gas fund’s value for each person living in the country. The per capita value is $456,000.

If British Columbia had a resources fund equal in per capita value to that of Norway’s, the pool of dollars would be equivalent to 32x the provincial government’s projected revenue for 2025. The mythical fund would be almost 20x BC’s total provincial debt.

Of course, our governments believe that resources belong to those who exploit them today and that future generations have no right to a share of the province’s current asset values.