Non-Renewable Resources

The non-renewable resources cluster group will be asked to focus on identifying a limited number of indicators linked to stocks of Canada's non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels, metals, and minerals. These resource stocks will be derived from Statistics Canada's subsoil asset accounts (part of the Canadian System of Environmental and Resource Accounts, or CSERA) and other sources, and will consider both monetary and physical data. Specifically, the cluster group will be asked to examine the following issues:

• How to best aggregate the various individual mineral and fossil fuel stocks into a small number of indicators or into a single indicator,
• Whether to limit the indicators to stocks of economically exploitable resources, or whether to include the total resource base, which includes stocks that are not currently commercially accessible but which may become so in the future (note that Statistics Canada collects data on both types of stocks),
• Whether or not some non-renewable stocks should be separated out from any aggregated indicators of stocks, given their strategic importance (e.g. natural gas), and
• Whether or not to include some indicators that demonstrate trends in the ease of locating and extracting new resource reserves (e.g. level of effort over time).

The group will be asked to recommend no more than three indicators, and to designate one preferred indicator to the Steering Committee.