B.C. posted lower year-over-year price increases in March than the national average, according to a Statistics Canada report released Monday.
The report found that B.C. prices rose 1.6% in March year-over-year, after rising 1.7% the previous month.
Across the country, however, prices were up 1.9% in March, slowing from a 2.6% hike in February. StatsCan found that the slowdown in national price hikes resulted from a month-over-month decline in food prices in March 2012. In the same month in 2011, food prices had been on the rise.
B.C.’s March prices increased 0.6% compared with the previous month. That’s a faster monthly rate of increase than the national average, which rose 0.4% from February to March.
Statistics Canada reported that B.C.’s gas prices increased 6.0% in the 12 months to March, after rising 4.2% in February. It noted that B.C. and Manitoba were the only two provinces in which gas prices rose faster in the 12 months to March than in the 12 months to February.
