COMPREHENSIVE WEALTH IN CANADA

This report evaluates Canada's comprehensive wealth from 1980 to 2013, finding that while the nation remains wealthy, its comprehensive wealth grew by only 7% per capita, far slower than the 54% growth in individual consumption. The analysis reveals a significant 25% decline in market natural capital and stagnant human capital, while growth in produced capital was heavily concentrated in the volatile housing and oil and gas sectors. The authors argue that this divergence suggests insufficient investment in the nation's long-term asset base and recommend that the federal government fund Statistics Canada to implement regular comprehensive wealth measurement.

• Between 1980 and 2013, Canada's comprehensive wealth grew by 7 per cent in real per capita terms, representing an annualized growth rate of 0.19 per cent.
• Average individual consumption in Canada grew by 54 per cent (1.36 per cent per year) between 1980 and 2013, significantly outpacing the growth of comprehensive wealth.
• Canada's market natural capital—comprising minerals, fossil fuels, timber, and agricultural land—declined by 25 per cent per person from 1980 to 2013.
• Human capital, which constitutes 80 per cent of Canada's comprehensive wealth, showed 0 per cent growth between 1980 and 2013, despite an increase in the number of Canadians obtaining diplomas.
• Produced capital grew by 73 per cent per person (1.68 per cent per year) from 1980 to 2013, but this growth was highly concentrated, with 70 per cent attributed to housing and the oil and gas extraction industry.
• The oil and gas extraction industry's share of produced assets in the business sector more than tripled from approximately 9 per cent in 1980 to 28 per cent by 2013.
• The United Nations ranked Canada first among G7 nations for the level of comprehensive wealth per capita in 2010, but ranked it last among G7 members for the growth of that wealth.
• The gap between slow comprehensive wealth growth and faster consumption growth is not explained by productivity gains, as Canadian productivity growth from 1980 to 2013 was only 0.11 per cent annually.
• The report suggests that the federal government should fund Statistics Canada to regularly measure comprehensive wealth, prioritizing the monetary measurement of human and social capital and filling gaps in natural capital measures for water, commercial fisheries, and all ecosystems.
• Social capital was measured using non-monetary indicators and showed signs of stability but no growth during the study period.
• Recent data indicates a further sharp decline in natural capital value after 2013; by the end of 2015, the total nominal value of Canada's natural capital was 75 per cent lower than at the start of 2014, driven by falling global oil prices.
• The report identifies the aging of the Canadian workforce as a contributing factor to the stagnation of human capital, as older workers have fewer remaining years of work and thus lower lifetime earning potential.
• The study utilized a chained Törnqvist volume index to aggregate per capita produced, natural, and human capital into a Comprehensive Wealth Index.
• The valuation of market natural assets in the report is based on the concept of resource rent, which is the difference between revenues earned in resource extraction and the costs of that activity.

APA

International Institute for Sustainable Development (2016). COMPREHENSIVE WEALTH IN CANADA. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/comprehensive-wealth-full-report-web.pdf

Chicago

International Institute for Sustainable Development. COMPREHENSIVE WEALTH IN CANADA. 2016. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/comprehensive-wealth-full-report-web.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=International Institute for Sustainable Development |title=COMPREHENSIVE WEALTH IN CANADA |date=December 2016 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/comprehensive-wealth-full-report-web.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{internationalinstituteforsustainabledevelopment2016comprehensive, author = {{International Institute for Sustainable Development}}, title = {{COMPREHENSIVE WEALTH IN CANADA}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2016}, month = dec, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/comprehensive-wealth-full-report-web.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }