Manitoba inflation rate rises in December

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This article was published 23/01/2015 (4084 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba was the only province to see an increase in its annual inflation rate in December, new Statistics Canada data shows.

The agency said the annual rate here climbed to 1.5 per cent last month from 1.1 per cent in November.

However, an annual inflation rate of 1.5 per cent is still pretty low by historical standards.

Statistics Canada said a key contributor to the increase was a 3.2 per cent jump in the clothing and footwear index between December 2013 and last month.

Other consumer items that climbed in price over the 12-month period were fresh or frozen beef (up 25.4 per cent), natural gas (up 14.9 per cent) and furniture (up 13.6 per cent), the data shows.

Those increases were partially offset by price declines for things like gasoline (down 14.5 per cent) and home entertainment equipment, parts and services (down 5.9 per cent).

December’s increase left Manitoba with the third highest annual inflation rate among the provinces. Alberta and Ontario had the highest, at 1.9 per cent, followed by Saskatchewan at 1.7 per cent.

Statistics Canada said the fall of prices at the pump helped slow Canada’s annual inflation rate last month to 1.5 per cent. That compared with an annual gain in the consumer price index of two per cent in November.

The agency said gasoline prices in Canada last month were down 16.6 per cent from a year earlier.

Compared with a year earlier, consumer prices rose in seven of the survey’s eight major categories with transportation the lone decliner.

The December headline inflation reading matched economists’ expectations, according to Thomson Reuters.

The core inflation measure, which excludes some volatile items such as gasoline, accelerated slightly in December to 2.2 per cent to match economists’ expectations.

— Staff/Canadian Press