Canada’s annual inflation rate rises to 2 per cent in April
Posted May 18, 2012 8:43 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA – The Canadian inflation rate edged up one-tenth of a point to two per cent in April as the cost of most things rose, but moderately, Statistics Canada said Friday.
The big surprise was that energy costs, for the first time since October 2009, rose at lower rate than the overall index with a tiny 1.1 per cent increase from last year.
The agency says prices rose year-over-year in all eight of the major groups it tracks, led by transportation, which increase by 3.4 per cent, and food, which cost 2.5 per cent more.
On a monthly tracking, consumer prices rose 0.4 per cent in April from March as the cost of gasoline increased by 3.2 per cent.
The Bank of Canada’s so-called core index, which measures underlying inflation by excluding volatile items such as energy, edged up two-tenths of a point to 2.1 per cent from the previous month.
Regionally, inflation was highest in Newfoundland at three per cent and lowest in Alberta, where the annual rate dipped to 0.8 per cent on falling costs for electricity and natural gas.
