Inflation notches higher in January

Statistics Canada says rising gasoline prices last month helped propel the country's annual inflation rate up two notches to 2.5 per cent.

The agency says consumer prices overall rose by half a point last month from December, almost reversing a similar one-month drop that month.

The big trigger to both the annual and monthly increase was gasoline, which registered a one-month pop of 2.8 per cent in January.

The annual inflation rate had been on a downward track since the summer, but January's reversal lifted both the headline number and underlying core inflation — which excludes volatile items — to one tick above the Bank of Canada target to 2.1 per cent.

On an annual basis, inflation is being mostly fuelled by two items — energy prices, which are up 6.5 per cent from last January, and food prices, which are up 4.2 per cent over the past 12 months.

The agency says that excluding those two items, inflation would be a tepid 1.6 per cent.

Regionally, the rate of increase in consumer prices overall was highest in New Brunswick at 3.2 per cent and lowest in British Columbia, at 1.7 per cent.

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