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.
Categories: Natural Gas, Norway
in-sights.ca 
Thanks, Norm, for continuing to pound the drum about the giveaways in the oil and gas extraction industry.
Aside from the dwindling revenue from lease bids, is there no fee per unit pumped — like a stumpage fee in the forestry sector? Call it a “pumpage fee.”
If there is no per-unit charge for harvesting a finite resource, no wonder they don’t mind flaring off all that energy at the LNG plant in Kitimat.
It’s not enough to employ a few thousand more workers and collect their income taxes: we need to be raising billions per year from the harvesters.
In the past, you’ve mentioned that oil and gas “busyness” puts a positive spin on the province’s and country’s GDP. I’d rather see spinning wind turbines.
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There’s too many consequences missing from the image above.
Such as? What could a sovereign state (or province) provide it’s citizens by employing a higher corporate taxation rate?
Many will deny it is permanent but in BC there seems to be too few Doctors. The problem? BC never has enough tax revenue. Imagine that! Go figure..
Stats…
https://www.ampliz.com/resources/list-of-physicians-in-canada/
According to the latest Ampliz 2026 healthcare database, there are 131,727 active physicians in Canada, serving in various specialties across hospitals, clinics, and private practices. This comprehensive figure includes general practitioners, specialists, surgeons, and locum tenens physicians.
The healthcare ecosystem in Canada stands as one of the most robust and equitable systems in the world. Physicians form the backbone of this healthcare infrastructure, providing high-quality medical care to citizens across provinces and territories.
16,500 = Number of BC doctors in 2026.
https://statbase.org/data/dnk-number-of-medical-doctors/
26,942 = Number of Doctors in Denmark as of 2023
Doctors per capita
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/doctors-per-capita-by-country
28.19 = CANADA
49.75 = NORWAY
44.98 = DENMARK
44.77 = SWITZERLAND
43.73 = ICELAND
44.08 = SWEDEN
36.09 = FINLAND
Which countries offer Socialized Medicine?
https://www.healthcare-management-degree.net/list-articles/five-socialized-medicine-programs-around-the-world-that-work/
Germany
Germany leads the European Union with its excellent benefits for German citizens. Their state insurance plan covers 92 percent of the population.
Norway
Norway is unique on our list of socialized medicine countries because its hospitals are not privately operated. Instead, they’re funded by the national budget. They also offer completely free coverage to any resident under the age of sixteen.
Japan
In Japan, the government and the citizens split the cost of healthcare, but not evenly. The state is responsible for 70 percent of a person’s healthcare costs, while citizens only need to cover 30 percent.
Even if you can’t pay, hospitals are required by law to treat people in need and operate as non-profit organizations.
Austria
Austria’s socialized medicine is one of the most encompassing in the world because it accommodates both Austrian citizens and European Union citizens residing in Austria.
Israel
Unlike in Germany, where you can opt-out of the healthcare plan, participating in the Israeli healthcare system is compulsory. Like its military service, Israel tries to get the most of its population to help it grow and benefit more rapidly.
Which Countries offer free Healthcare?
https://www.cgaa.org/article/countries-with-free-healthcare
Countries like the UK, Germany, and Japan offer free or low-cost healthcare to their citizens, but their models differ significantly.
The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is a publicly-funded system that provides comprehensive coverage to all residents.
Germany’s healthcare system is a social health insurance model, where citizens can choose between different insurance providers.
Japan’s healthcare system is a universal coverage model, where all citizens are required to purchase health insurance.
In the UK, the NHS is funded through taxes and national insurance contributions, making it a cost-effective option for citizens.
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Germany’s healthcare system is known for its high-quality care and low administrative costs, thanks to its decentralized structure.
Japan’s universal coverage model ensures that all citizens have access to essential healthcare services, including doctor visits and hospital stays.
Countries with free healthcare include Canada, France, UK, Australia, Germany, Brazil, and Norway.
There are many more countries that have systems in place to cover essential medical services through public funding, reducing or eliminating costs for individuals.
Some countries with free healthcare include Canada, where medically necessary services are provided free of charge, including hospital stays, physician visits, and diagnostic tests. The UK also has a publicly funded system mainly through general taxation, providing primary care, emergency services, and various specialist services free at the point of use.
Countries with free healthcare:
• Canada
• France
• UK
• Australia
• Germany
• Brazil
• Norway
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the 10 countries with the best healthcare in the world are:
1. France
2. Italy
3. San Marino
4. Andorra
5. Malta
6. Singapore
7. Spain
8. Oman
9. Austria
10. Japan
Absent from the WHO list? Canada, the UK, the US, and Australia, in short the countries who chose to use politics for social engineering invented what Citibank called the “Plutonomy”.
Decades ago such states voluntarily engineered their political systems to ensure about 5% of their population remained healthy, highly prosperous, and very well-served. This surprised many since the end of hereditary monarchies was assumed to have eliminated such lunacy. As with the Monarchy Catastrophe the bulk of the population were welcomed to pound sand. Witness American health care under King Trump.
Is it surprising that the Plutonomies are in a constant state of turmoil? Lurching from one crisis to another without ever resolving any deep issue permanently?
Returning to the image above and similar articles on this site how well or disastrously a government delivers its promises requires sufficient insight to resist regarding Prosperity as indicated solely by an inflated stock market but instead by how satisfied citizens are that the right ideas are being implemented.
In BC? We’ve experienced 26 years of waiting for anyone political to see what the Scandinavian nations already have achieved. And then copy it.
Discussion?
Source:
Plutonomy
https://www.quantopia.net/blog/understanding-plutonomy-wealth-control-growth-and-economic-impact/
What Exactly is a Plutonomy?
1. The Citigroup Memos: A Revealing Diagnosis
2. The Three Pillars of a Plutonomy
3. The Stark Reality: Plutonomy and Wealth Concentration
4. The Backlash: Political Resistance and the Push for Equity
5. Conclusion
6. References
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When even Business In Vancouver spots an absurd causality in BC Hydro’s self-inflicted power demand “crisis” (mortal wounds!) be assured there’s a serious problem that won’t be resolved in the Public Interest.
https://www.biv.com/news/economy-law-politics/bc-hydro-quietly-seeks-gas-contracts-as-power-shortage-looms-12366371
Faced with an electricity shortfall, B.C. Hydro is seeking to extend contracts with two major natural gas plants, a policy reversal that challenges one of the province’s core climate goals.
In a May 28 submission to the B.C. Utilities Commission, the utility seeks approval to pursue new agreements with Island Generation, a gas power plant at an old mill in Campbell River; and McMahon Cogeneration, a gas-fired facility in Taylor in northeastern B.C.
B.C. Hydro chief regulatory officer Chris Sandve said in the submission that electricity demand is expected to skyrocket with the rise of data centres, electric vehicles, economic growth and large industrial customers like mines and gas export terminals.
B.C. is now projected to face an electricity shortfall of 500 megawatts by 2030—enough power for 500,000 homes.
The risk of an energy shortage is “significant,” wrote Sandve, especially as government seeks to guide the economy through an uncertain geopolitical moment.
Together, the gas power plants generate about 400 megawatts of electricity, enough to cover 80 per cent of the forecasted supply gap identified by B.C. Hydro.
Evan Pivnick, a program manager with the think tank Clean Energy Canada, said the change represents a major shift in B.C.’s energy policy.
“This is changing core policies in the procurement of clean electricity in the province,” said Pivnick.
B.C. Hydro is currently bound by regulations to phase out all fossil-fuel power plants by 2030.
According to Sandve, B.C. Hydro is in a tough spot, since under the Clean Energy Act, the province must produce all its own power, but sticking to that rule undermines its regulated target to electrify the entire grid with renewable sources.
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Predictions?
Eby will cave.
He will insist that LNG is a “transitional fuel” – like nuclear, almost Green, no really! He will permit Hydro to proceed with whatever they wish.
Instead of following the lead of several US states in banning useless Data Centres Eby will cave. Carney will join him in his LNG Superpower chorus.
Regulations to phase out fossil fuel power plants? Say so long. Either they will be abolished or unenforced.
Goodbye Environment.
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In case you’ve been wondering – who supports huge Data Centres?
Angus Reid has a poll.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bakx-york-ai-data-centres-alberta-solomon-9.7222388
Support
15% across Canada
11% Saskatchewan
12% Ontario
13% Alberta
17% Atlantic
17% Manitoba
18% BC
19% Quebec
Oppose
68% across Canada
61% Quebec
67% Saskatchewan
68% Atlantic
71% BC
71% Alberta
71% Ontario
72% Manitoba
“Federal AI minister Evan Solomon has pushed back against both strict opponents and those who over-hype the technology, instead emphasizing the need to balance expansion with safety, fairness, and pragmatism.”
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See the problem? Those “strict” opponent-types. For sure those stinkers are just Bad Actors.
Otherwise everybody important agrees, BC’s Hydro bills are way too low!
Just because BC is experiencing earlier and more frequent droughts, well OK, restricting water use has been imposed…again,
That’s Pragmatic too. Because, well, you know, having enough water is important. To humans.
But that’s no reason to get in the way of what Mr. Solomon wants most!
His Mission? Push back! Protest! Until whatever the poll numbers say is finally ignored.
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Two NDP Premiers. Why does Premier Kinew score higher in public support so consistently?
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/2026/06/05/saying-no-to-ai-data-centre-a-huge-win-for-manitoba-and-kinew
Closer to home, Premier Wab Kinew appears to have sidestepped a similar disaster by rejecting a proposal by Las Vegas-based Jet.AI and Vancouver-based Consensus Core for a huge data centre north of Ile des Chênes.
“We’ve taken a look at this project,” Kinew told CBC this week. “We’ve taken a look at AI more broadly, what’s happening across North America, and these hyper-scale data centres don’t appear to be in the best interests of Manitobans.”
Kinew says the economic benefits would be small and outweighed by the environmental and social impacts of the project.
An online petition against the project has nearly 14,000 signatures, while the non-profit organization Climate Action Team Manitoba has issued a statement stating the project “would threaten Manitoba’s clean energy future.”
This is not to say that massive AI data centres will go away. In fact, they are exponentially increasing.
Canada has hundreds of AI production and data storage centres, including 10 in Manitoba.
At the moment, though, only five are what can be called “hyper-scale” mega-projects. A whopping 96 additional projects, which will require millions of cubic metres of water, thousands of gigawatts of electricity, and will produce tonnes of carbon emissions, are either in the proposal stage or under construction.
Around 90 per cent of those are — wait for it — in Alberta.
The problem is that to get these projects done, it seems, one must sidestep environmental regulations, commit billions of dollars in energy infrastructure and environmental cleanup, and ignore Indigenous and treaty rights.
On this one, Kinew is probably right, that the costs associated with AI data mega-centres are too high and the profits are too low.
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https://vancouver.citynews.ca/video/2026/06/18/prime-minister-carney-and-premier-eby-make-landmark-housing-agreement/
A contrast.
What too often happens when a threatened population refuses to look anywhere else for solutions to complex problems than corporate media with no reporters located anywhere else on earth? Public ignorance. Stable negligence. Social rot,.
Three perspectives on Housing suggesting that perhaps what Canada’s Elite policy wonks allege is necessary, politically acceptable and just jolly good Economic Social Stewardship can only fail.
With never a moment’s hesitation and lots of self-praise year after year after year our Housing can gets kicked down the road.. For another administration with the same incremental-effort-only agenda.
Let’s take a trip-.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/12/john-healey-political-vultures-keir-starmer-history-pm-imicide
Vienna has been declared a renters’ utopia – here’s why
Social housing makes up almost half of the city’s 1m homes. The system isn’t perfect, but it gets a lot of things right.
A considerable part of the attraction of Vienna relates to its large social-housing stock. It accounts for some 43% of the roughly 1m housing units in the city. About half of it is municipally owned council housing. The other half is provided and administered by limited-profit housing associations – an Austrian version of social housing providers that are permitted to make a small profit to finance their operations. Social housing is not just for those on low incomes, but also caters to middle- and even some upper-middle-class households.
The positive impacts are directly measurable. Rent levels in the social-housing sector are significantly lower than in the private rental market: newly rented units in the limited-profit and council housing sectors cost about 30% less. Housing quality, meanwhile, is often higher, particularly in the limited-profit housing stock. Moreover, the availability of social housing also dampens rent levels in the private rental market, as a recent study showed.
The sector has not grown overnight. It originated in the municipal socialism of “Red Vienna” in the 1920s, when the Social Democratic Workers’ party set up far-reaching social policies to improve the living conditions of the working class. Financed through progressive taxes, housing played a large role. Today, the Social Democrats are still in power and social housing provision continues, albeit in a different form. Council housing construction has waned since the 1980s, and limited-profit housing has increased. A considerable amount of the financing comes from a 1% levy on the salaries of every employee in Vienna.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/23/switzerland-zurich-housing-cooperatives-europe-housing-crisis
Could Zurich’s housing cooperatives be the solution to the rest of Europe’s housing crisis?
Children zoom down a tunnel slide, as their parents watch on, sipping coffees and chatting amicably on the long benches in the middle of the courtyard.
They are surrounded by modern-looking housing developments – architecturally smart, medium-rise, expensive-looking in their design. This appears to be just another 21st-century development in a major city, a development that a builder has made a tidy profit out of, and flats that will have inevitably been snapped up by landlords and rented out at the highest market rate.
But look a little closer, and things are different.
There are more children, more families than you would find in a development like this in London.
People seem to know one another, neighbours greet each other warmly and are sitting together outside, rather than dashing to the metro station with earbuds jammed in.
Inside, some of the flats are arranged in clusters: eight bedrooms opening out into a communal
space where neighbours cook, chat and share meals. There are a larger number of working class, poorer and ethnic-minority residents than you might expect to find in a development like this in a major city.
This is the Mehr als Wohnen cooperative in Zurich, Switzerland: a collection of 13 blocks of apartments that represent a different way of developing housing in major cities across the country.
The buildings are all owned by a cooperative, which developed them. And the cooperative is owned by the people who live in the flats and have bought a share in the business. The result is no landlord, no speculative property developer, no soaring housing prices, no profit, no need for evictions and a structure that supports genuinely affordable housing and communal living. The cooperative includes shops, workspaces, a restaurant, a children’s nursery and a hotel. It has a no-car policy, supplemented by electric car and ebike rental systems. It could not feel more different from the UK.
In many parts of the world, a cooperative such as this is not some kind of utopian dream. Actually, it’s the primary means societies from Scandinavia to South America use to provide housing for people who can’t afford outright market rates. Zurich is fast becoming a modern exemplar of how to use this model to build a different kind of city.
One in every five citizens in Zurich now lives in a cooperative – meaning they have bought a share in the company that built and owns their apartment block. This means that despite being a major global financial hub and pleasantly located on the edge of a large lake, poorer, younger people, families and students can still find somewhere they can afford in the centre of the city.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/22/barcelona-madrid-different-ideas-tackling-spain-housing-crisis
Barcelona and Madrid have very different ideas on tackling Spain’s housing crisis. Which will succeed?
In Spain, two cities face the same crisis, but are responding in fundamentally different ways. Over the past decade, the cost of housing in Madrid and Barcelona has soared – with rents rising by about 60% and sale prices by\ 90% – leaving young people, working families and retired people struggling to stay in their homes or even find one.
Yet, while one city is betting everything on construction and giving free rein to big investors, the other is cautiously trying to steer the housing market towards the public good, despite political and institutional constraints.
This is more than a national contrast. It’s a story of two cities and two competing visions now taking root across Europe.
The great housing grab
While Spain’s economy continues to grow on paper, the reality on the ground tells a different story – one of worsening inequality and housing exclusion. In the past decade, more than half of all homes have been bought without a mortgage, a sign that many are being acquired not by those in need of housing but by those who already own property. The number of people who own at least 10 homes has jumped by 20%.
This is what I call the great housing grab. Since the mortgage crisis of 2008, more than 1.3m units have entered Spain’s rental market. They weren’t newly built, but homes lost by working-class families and scooped up by investors, including large private equity firms. The conservative government in power between 2011 and 2018 not only handed out tax breaks and public money through a massive bailout of the banks, but also rewrote tenancy laws to turn tenants themselves into profitable assets for those institutions.
The ideal of a middle-class society of homeowners is collapsing. Those already asset rich are buying up more homes and outcompeting working families. And those families, if lucky, now rent those same homes back at inflated prices, enriching the wealthy. For many, the only hope is to inherit, assuming their parents don’t have to sell their home to live out their later years with dignity.
The current crisis didn’t appear overnight. It’s the product of decades of government intervention designed to turn housing into a financial asset. Since the 1980s, Spain has followed a familiar playbook: dismantling social housing (now barely 2-3% of all homes), removing rent controls for new contracts, offering tax breaks to owners and fuelling massive mortgage debt.
This model triggered successive construction booms that were accompanied by steep price increases. As long as everyone seemed to benefit from ever-rising asset values, few questioned the model. But it eventually proved unsustainable, pushing younger and poorer households out of the market. The 2008 crisis became a stark reminder that the neoliberal recipe had ultimately failed.
Since the great meltdown, those left behind have fought back in successive waves. After years of tenant mobilisation, the Spanish government – led by a progressive coalition – finally passed a new housing law in 2023. For the first time, it gave regional and local authorities the power to cap rents, raise taxes on vacant homes and ban agencies from charging tenants fees. Additional measures in 2024 and 2025 have marked a shift away from neoliberal orthodoxy, such as extending the social housing system, ordering the removal of unlicensed Airbnb listings, or opening proceedings against real-estate companies that charge unlawful fees.
Despite the new law, loopholes and tax rules that encourage speculative investment are still in place, undermining efforts to reshape the housing market in the public interest. And, while the central government partly sets the framework, it is in the regions and cities where the real battle is fought – and their responses could not be more different.
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