Canada’s inflation rate has spiked to another 18-year high of 4.7% in October, according to Statistics Canada data.
The high rate is the most inflation the country has seen since February 2003.
Statistics Canada reports that all eight categories of goods tracked by the department have been impacted by the rising costs.
Transportation costs have been the most impacted and are currently up by over 10% this past year.
Gasoline has seen major surges since October of last year and is currently up 41.7%.
The cost of shelter has increased by 4.8% over the year and food has on average spiked up 3.9%.
Overall inflation levels are slightly higher when compared to September when the Consumer Price Index was sitting at 4.4%.
Critics of the Liberal government have called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to curb spending in order to stop the surge of prices.
“Since the pandemic began (beginning of March 2020) the Bank of Canada has printed more than $380 billion,” Canadian Taxpayers Federation Federal Direction Franco Terrazzano told True North, referencing official Bank of Canada data.
“The stats are showing what everyone is feeling: pain from sky-high cost of living. It’s time for the feds to take the printing press out of overdrive, rein in the overspending and provide tax relief.”
This week, Conservative Party Finance Critic Pierre Poilievre blasted the Trudeau government for making the “costliest cabinet ever” and not dealing with the evolving situation.
“You’ve got a finance minister who has given us hundreds of billions of dollars of inflationary deficits, with more to come; you’ve got the housing minister that gave us the worst housing bubble in Canadian history, keeping his job; and of course you’ve got a radical Greenpeace activist who believes in much higher energy prices and shutting down industries that employ hundreds of thousands of people in charge of our environment,” said Poilievre.
“It’s the costliest cabinet ever, which means more inflation, higher costs for fuel, food and housing. And that’s why my number one priority is to fight Liberal inflation and stand up for consumers and workers.”
