Banff 
In February, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in Canada saw a slight decrease in its year-over-year growth rate, recording a 2.8% increase compared to January’s 2.9%.
This deceleration can be attributed to reduced prices in cellular services, store-bought food, and Internet access services. Contrarily, gasoline prices, which had declined by 4.0% in January, increased by 0.8% in February, counteracting the overall slowdown in inflation.
Statistics Canada says February marked the first instance since October 2021 where grocery price inflation was lower than the headline CPI rate.
The overall grocery prices still increased by 21.6% from February 2021 to February 2024, underscoring the prolonged elevation in food costs. This trend is partially linked to supply issues and higher production costs.
Here are the highlights of Statistics Canada’s latest report:
- Cellular services saw a significant decline, with prices dropping 26.5% year-over-year, due to more affordable plans and enhanced data allowances.
- Internet access services also became cheaper, falling 13.2% year-over-year, attributed to special promotions from providers.
- Food prices at stores rose by 2.4%, down from 3.4% in January, with varying trends across different food categories. Notably, fresh fruit, processed meat, and fish prices decreased, whereas other food items like cereal products and dairy experienced a slowdown in price growth.
- Gasoline prices rebounded, rising 0.8% year-over-year in February after a 4.0% decrease in January. This was partly due to higher global crude oil prices and anticipated production cuts by oil-producing nations.
- Travel tours saw a higher year-over-year increase of 4.8% in February, driven by seasonal travel demand.
- Excluding gasoline, the CPI’s year-over-year growth slowed to 2.9%.
- Monthly, the CPI increased by 0.3% in February, with travel tours and gasoline being major contributors.
- Rent and mortgage interest costs continued to exert upward pressure on the CPI.
Statistics Canada says inflation rates slowed in seven provinces in February, while Alberta experienced an increase to 4.2% from 3.4% last month due to a significant increase in natural gas prices.
The measures of core inflation, CPI-trim and CPI-median, which the Bank of Canada uses as one of the factors to determine the interest rate reduced at a lower rate and hovers around 3.2% and 3.1%, respectively.
CPI-trim and CPI-median are core inflation measures that exclude extreme price changes. CPI-trim removes the outer 40%, while CPI-median focuses on the median price change.
