OTTAWA — Statistics Canada says the annual pace of inflation jumped higher in March due in large part to a plunge in prices a year ago at the start of the pandemic.
The agency says the consumer price index in March was up 2.2 per cent compared with a year ago.
The increase compared with a 1.1 per cent year-over-year increase in February, which was then a pandemic-era high.
The figures for March marked a new high, but one that saw prices compared against a year ago when the first wave of COVID-19 crashed on Canada’s shores.
March gas prices, for example, were up 35.3 per cent compared with the same month last year when prices reached a four-year low at the onset of the pandemic.
Statistics Canada says about one-fifth of the increase in gasoline prices was due to the comparison with prices in March 2020.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 21, 2021
