Following the post-pandemic surge, inflation first returned to its two percent target in August 2024. Over the next year, inflation was at or below target for all but two months. Since September 2025, it has been above target. A big driver of this increase has been soaring food prices. Without food price growth, headline inflation since September would have been below target in all but one of the months.
For more on what’s driving these food price increases, what factors the Bank of Canada can easily look through before its March 18 interest rate decision, and what factors it has to worry about, see this recent Globe and Mail op-ed.
Sources: Statistics Canada and Macrobond.
