AI Analysis: Consumer Price Index, monthly, seasonally adjusted

Executive Summary

Canada's seasonally adjusted Consumer Price Index has more than doubled since 1992, with the All-items CPI rising 100.2% to reach 166.4 by February 2026 — roughly 66% above the 2002 baseline. Price growth has been uneven across categories, with alcoholic beverages, tobacco & cannabis (202.1) and food (200.3) far outpacing overall inflation, while clothing & footwear is the only category where prices have actually declined since 2002. The 2020–2023 period stands out as a window of significant disruption, contributing to the 10 statistically anomalous months detected across 34 years of monthly data.

Key Findings

• The All-items CPI rose 100.2% from 83.1 to 166.4 between January 1992 and February 2026, meaning average Canadian prices have effectively doubled over 34 years.
• Alcoholic beverages, tobacco & recreational cannabis recorded the highest CPI at 202.1 and the largest long-run gain (+153.3%), with the widest price variability of any category (std: 40.9).
• Food prices more than doubled since 2002, reaching a CPI of 200.3 (+144.3% since 1992), making it the second-fastest rising category and a major driver of household cost pressures.
• Shelter CPI reached 189.5 (+116.3% since 1992), significantly above the all-items average and highlighting sustained long-term housing affordability challenges across Canada.
• Clothing and footwear is the only category with a current CPI below 100 (at 94.4), having risen just 0.3% over 34 years with the tightest distribution of any group (std: 2.6), indicating prices are lower today than in 2002.
• Only 10 outlier months were identified out of 410 total observations (2.4%), against a backdrop of remarkably stable average monthly growth of just +0.17% (std: 0.27%), underscoring that extreme price swings are rare but impactful.
• Most CPI product groups show strong positive correlations with one another, reflecting broad economy-wide inflationary trends, though the degree of co-movement varies across categories.