Consumer price index rises 1.7 percent from a year ago
OTTAWA — The annual pace of inflation cooled to 1.7 per cent last month — but rising prices underneath the turbulence of this headline number suggest the Bank of Canada is unlikely to veer from its interest-rate hiking path.
A new Statistics Canada report Friday showed that the average of three measures of core inflation, designed to filter out the noise of more-volatile items like gasoline, advanced once again in January to hit 1.8 per cent.
The average of the core readings reached its highest mark since September 2016, the latest consumer price index found.
Average core inflation has been on a steady monthly climb since it fell to 1.3 per cent in May 2017. The movement suggests underlying consumer prices have been moving higher due to Canada’s recent economic strength.