Canada’s inflation rate edges down to 1.9%

Canada’s annual inflation rate ticked down to 1.9 per cent in November, with the slowdown in price growth mostly driven by lower mortgage interest costs and cheaper travel tours, Statistics Canada said on Tuesday.

Inflation came down across the board, with groceries coming in at 2.6 per cent year-over-year in November from 2.7 per cent in October. But grocery prices are still up, the agency said, having risen 19.6 per cent since November 2021.

Gas prices also fell in November to -0.5 per cent, but had a smaller year-over-year decline due to a base-year effect — the impact of comparing prices in a given month to the same month a year earlier.

With gasoline excluded, overall inflation rose two per cent last month.

More to come.