Resource rents: flows vs annuitized stock — a refinement of the headline
2026-07-18 · wave 13 · ESTIMATE lane, deepening mode. Closes the approximation
flagged in analysis/canada-estimate.md ("stock × discount ≈ annual rent only
holds loosely").
Basis note (w18): the ranges here are pre-netting (w17 subtracts the ≈$38.5B land share of property taxes). Canonical:
NUMBERS.md.
The issue
The site's ≈$430B/yr figure treats non-land resource wealth like land: stock ($1.369T, StatCan Q1 2026) × 5.5% = ≈$75B/yr. But StatCan's resource wealth is already a net present value of expected future resource rents under its own discounting and extraction paths — annuitizing it at our cap rate is a different (and here, more generous) model than measuring the rents themselves.
The measured-flow alternative
The best available Canadian resource-rent flow figures are the ones the wiki has claim-verified against Common Wealth Canada's 2023 report (its sector chapters, which build from StatCan industry accounts and existing royalty regimes):
| Sector | Possible annual rent |
|---|---|
| Energy (oil & gas, EBIDA less normal return, 2020) | $19.2B |
| Minerals (at the HGF 24% royalty benchmark) | $11.3B |
| Forestry (Alberta stumpage model nationally) | $3.8B |
| Fisheries | $0.25B |
| Total extraction rents | ≈ $34.5B/yr |
| (Carbon/air externality, IISD-based — a different class: it prices harm, not resource extraction) | ($38.8B/yr) |
The reconciled headline
| Basis | Resource component | Total annual rent (land + resources) | Per person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Measured-flow | $34.5B | ≈ $392B/yr | ≈ $9,400 |
| Stock-annuitized | $75.3B | ≈ $432B/yr | ≈ $10,400 |
Working position: quote the range — ≈$390–430B/yr, ≈$9,400–$10,400 per person — with the measured-flow number as the conservative anchor. The site's "≈$10,000/yr" headline stands (it sits inside the range) but its footnote now carries the two bases. Carbon pricing, if added, is presented as its own layer (+≈$900/person-yr), never silently folded into "resource rents."
Why the gap exists: StatCan's reserve valuations embed price expectations and resource lives; extraction rents fluctuate with commodity cycles (the $19.2B energy figure is a 2020 trough-adjacent year — a boom year would look different). Both facts argue for quoting flows measured over a cycle — queued as a data-refresh task whenever StatCan's resource satellite figures update.
Ripple effects checked
household-incidence.md: unaffected in structure — the resource component enters only the allowance side, lowering the average allowance ≈2% on the measured-flow basis; no quintile changes side.mechanism.md§1 magnitudes line: updated to the range.- Site stat-band note: updated to state both bases.
- The farm, Vancouver, and transition analyses key off land values only — unaffected.
Sources
- Common Wealth Canada, Natural Common Wealth and Economic Rent in Canada (Jan 2023 v3), sector chapters — figures as claim-verified on the wiki: https://www.progress.org/wiki/natural-common-wealth-economic-rent-canada/
- Statistics Canada, Table 36-10-0580-01 — natural resources excluding land $1.369T (Q1 2026), the annuitization base.
- Statistics Canada, Canada's natural resource wealth, 2024 — the NPV methodology note underlying the caution.