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| - Canada's inflation rate doubled year over year in March to 2.2 percent as prices bounced back from lows at the start of the pandemic, the government statistical agency said Wednesday. A "significant portion" of the jump in prices, Statistics Canada explained, was due to a rebound from "a steep decline in prices" a year earlier, when Canada declared a pandemic emergency and lockdowns curtailed demand for many goods and services. The agency also pointed to rising consumer confidence and job gains that brought overall employment just shy of pre-Covid levels for the price turnaround. Transportation (+7.1 percent) and shelter (+2.4 percent) prices contributed the most to growth in the Consumer Price Index, it said, while the costs of clothing and footwear (-5.4 percent) and for household operations, furnishings and equipment (-0.2 percent) fell. Higher gasoline prices led a 35 percent jump in overall consumer energy prices as global oil demand rose from lows last year when people were ordered to stay at home to slow the spread of Covid-19. Prices for natural gas (+14.1 percent), as well as fuel oil and other fuels (+7.7 percent) also increased year over year in March. New home prices, meanwhile, soared as costs for building materials and demand for single-family homes continued to rise, and mortgage rates fell. Consumers also paid more for eggs and milk, and cars, but less for beef, telephone services, hotel accommodations and both men's and women's clothing. amc/dw
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