P.E.I. inflation rate fell to 7.0% in January, regaining top spot in Canada

After falling behind Manitoba at the end of 2022, Prince Edward Island again led the country in January, recording the highest inflation rate of any jurisdiction in Canada.

But that rate is coming down.

P.E.I.'s annual average Consumer Price Index for the first month of 2023 was 7.0 per cent, compared to 7.7 per cent a month earlier and 8.8 in in January 2022.

Overall across Canada, the rate for January 2023 was 5.9 per cent on a year-over-year basis.

"In January, prices rose 4.9 per cent on a year-over-year basis excluding food and energy and 5.4 per cent excluding mortgage interest cost," Statistics Canada said in a news release. "In both cases, year-over-year price growth slowed compared with December."

Canadians with mortgages paid 21 per cent more in January of this year than they did a year earlier, after the Bank of Canada launched a series of interest rate increases to cool down the economy and help keep overall prices in check.

Statistics Canada also recorded increases in petroleum prices across the country, blaming them on "refinery closures in the southwestern United States following winter storm Elliot." That was the name the Weather Channel gave to a major storm system that blasted the continent the week before Christmas.

In Prince Edward Island's two cities, Statistics Canada said buyers paid an average of 161.8 cents per litre for unleaded gas in January, more than 10 cents higher than a month earlier.

The cost of diesel and household heating fuel was down, however — by 45.4 cents a litre and 6.6 cents a litre respectively.