Statistics
Canada announced on Tuesday the country’s consumer price index (CPI) fell 0.4
per cent m-o-m in September,
following an unrevised 0.2 per cent m-o-m drop in the previous month. This marked
the steepest monthly decline in CPI since
December 2022 (-0.6 per cent m-o-m).
On a y-o-y
basis, Canada’s inflation rate jumped by 1.6 per cent last month, decelerating from an
unrevised 2.0 per cent in August. This represented the weakest
annual inflation rate since February
2021 (+1.1 per cent).
Economists had forecast
inflation would decrease by 0.2 per cent m-o-m and climb 1.8 per cent y-o-y in September.
According to
the report, the September deceleration in the headline annual inflation primarily
reflected a deeper y-o-y decline in gasoline prices (-10.7 per cent y-o-y in September compared
to -5.1 per
cent y-o-y in August).
The
monthly drop in inflation was also driven by a fall in gasoline prices (7.1 per cent
m-o-m in September), which was led by lower crude oil prices amid growing worries
about weaker economic growth, as well as lower costs associated with switching
to winter blends.
Meanwhile, the trimmed-mean
CPI - the preferred measure of core inflation of the Bank of Canada (BoC) - surged
2.4 per cent y-o-y in September, the same pace as in the previous month. Economists had predicted a soar of 2.5 per cent y-o-y.