Inflation exceeded the Bank of Canada’s control range for a sixth straight month, deeply worsened by supply chain bottlenecks that are proving stubbornly persistent.
The consumer price index rose 4.4% in September from a year earlier, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday in Ottawa. That’s the highest reading since February 2003, exceeding consensus expectations of 4.3% in a Bloomberg survey of economists.
On a monthly basis, inflation was up 0.2% in September. Higher food, shelter and transport prices were the main contributors. The average of the central bank’s core measures — often seen as a better gauge of underlying price pressures — ticked up to 2.67% from 2.6% in August.
The hot inflation readings of the last six months are deepening a communications challenge for Governor Tiff Macklem, who maintains the spike in consumer-price gains will be short-lived. The data also comes as traders in the overnight swaps market bet increasingly against the Bank of Canada’s guidance that policymakers won’t raise interest rates until the second half of next year.
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