Complete consistency is the luxury of theorists. In practice, sadly, there   
are such things as history and path dependency.  
  
The early developers of the national accounts did not anticipate the vast   
almost of practical  work that would be based on them.  If we had it to do   
over again, we would do it differently. But as it is, we must live with   
history, and try to be as close as possible to what we NOW need. So the   
accounts measure mainly market transactions, but  not (sadly) exclusively.   
We do not want to mix them up any further with non-market transactions and   
so use an elaborate set of satellite accounts to measure many other things   
that are of great interest.  
  
In any case, it is the decision of the National Accounts Division of   
Statistics Canada that I was referring to not mine--although what has been   
done is what I and others advised.  
  
  
Richard G. Lipsey