Inflation in Canada Accelerates

Inflation in Canada unexpectedly accelerated in December as steeper costs for phone services and food offset lower gasoline prices, pushing up the average inflation rate for all of 2018 to the highest level in seven years.

Canada’s consumer-price index rose 2 percent on a year-over-year basis in December, Statistics Canada said, after a 1.7 percent rise in the previous month.

For all of 2018, CPI rose 2.3 percent, following gains of 1.6 percent in 2017 and 1.4 percent in 2016. Last year’s increase was the biggest since 2011, the data agency said, and coincided with strong job growth and a pickup in wages in the first half of 2018.

As expected, gasoline prices declined sharply in December, down 8.6 percent. The December report, though, indicated prices other than gasoline shot up.

Source: Wall Street Journal