Canadian March Inflation Jumps to a 30-Month High of 3.3%

Canada’s inflation rate accelerated in March to the fastest in 2 1/2 years, exceeding all economist forecasts, adding pressure on the Bank of Canada to increase its policy interest rate in the next three months.

Consumer prices rose 3.3 percent from a year earlier after a 2.2 percent gain in February, Statistics Canada said today in Ottawa. Prices were up 1.1 percent on a monthly basis, the fastest since January 1991 when a new federal sales tax was introduced. The gains exceeded all forecasts in Bloomberg surveys of 25 economists, which had median estimates of 2.8 percent for annual inflation and 0.6 percent on a monthly basis.