Crown Land: Indicators and Statistics - Ministry of Forests

3.7 Economic Activity on Crown Land
Why is this Important?
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the measure
most often used to assess the size and trends of the
economy. It is a national accounting measure, and
although it can be estimated in different ways, it is
commonly understood to be the market value of
goods and services produced by the selected industry
sectors during the specified year, i.e. total revenue
less the costs of materials and purchased services
consumed in the process of production. 36
GDP provides a standardized measure for assessing a
number of economic issues, including strategic land
management issues such as:
• the relative importance of Crown land to
different sectors and how this changes through
time;
• the relative significance of Crown land allocation
to different sectors compared to other functions
of government; and
• the relative importance to different sectors
of Crown land versus private land, and thus
the impact of government policy decisions
impacting Crown land allocation and usage.
Key Statistics
GDP data are compiled by Statistics Canada using
the North American Industry Classification System
(NAICS). These data have been used to estimate the
GDP associated with Crown land using the method
described in the following paragraphs.
GDP estimates reported here are for sectors directly
dependent on Crown land; that is, sectors that use
Crown land for the production of goods or services
(e.g. oil and gas extraction, agriculture, adventure
tourism). Estimates have not been developed for
36 Note that GDP measures the market value of goods
and services and does not include the value of non-priced
economic goods and services. As a consequence the economic
value of (free) public services that utilize Crown land, such as
environmental benefits, public recreation, water catchment
services, some waste management services, public wharves,
and roads are not included in GDP.
Crown Land:
Indicators and
44 Statistics Report
sectors indirectly utilizing Crown land by virtue
of supplying inputs to sectors directly utilizing
Crown land (e.g. manufacturers supplying logging
equipment to forestry companies); nor for sectors
indirectly using Crown land by virtue of receiving
inputs from sectors directly utilizing Crown land, (e.g.
sawmills supplying lumber to manufacturers (see
Section 3.5, Sector Dependence on Crown Land).
The estimates of GDP produced on Crown land have
been derived from provincial GDP data at the most
detailed sub-sector level for the period 2002 to 2006.
The proportion of economic activity produced on
provincial Crown land by each sector and sub-sector
was estimated using the sector dependency estimates
for the sub-sector level, summarized in Section 3.5,
Sector Dependence on Crown Land. “High”, “low”
and “most likely” measures were established for each
sub-sector estimate of GDP produced on Crown
land. 37 All figures in this section use the “most likely”
measure, unless otherwise indicated. 38
For each sector, separate estimates are provided for
the GDP generated on Land Act Crown land, and for
all types of provincial Crown land (including Land Act
Crown land). For example, for the forest and logging
sector, Crown land used for some log handling and
storage sites is tenured under the Land Act. These
37 This has been done to reflect the degree of confidence of the
estimators in these figures, based as they are on incomplete
and sometimes inconsistent data sets and/or the subjective
estimates of different sector experts. See Section 3.5, Sector
Dependence on Crown Land for an explanation of data
sources.
38 These estimates are also based on the principal definition
of Crown land used throughout this report and discussed
in Section 2.3, Land Ownership in British Columbia and
Section 3.5, Sector Dependence on Crown Land, namely
that the land owned in fee simple by independent provincial
Crown agencies is considered private land (see Section 2.3).
Alternatively, if one considers this as provincial Crown land
then the dependence on Crown land is higher because of the
significant private land holdings of provincial Crown agencies
like School Boards of Trustees, Universities and Colleges and
Health Districts, Health Organizations (the SUCH sector);
and to a lesser extent, others like BC Hydro, Columbia
Power Corporation and a number of transport agencies and
commissions.