From gas to groceries, Canadians are paying more as inflation rate hits 4.4 per cent

CALGARY -

Whether you're filling up at the gas pump or filling up your grocery cart, it's costing you more. Statistics Canada reported the overall inflation in September reached 4.4 per cent, the highest it's been in 18 years.

Much of that price hike is due to the soaring cost of gasoline with people spending 32.8 per cent more to fill up at the pumps last month compared to September 2020.

Overall food prices climbed nearly four per cent while meat jumped 9.5 per cent.

Sylvain Charlebois, an agri-food analyst at Dalhousie University, told CTV News Calgary that the increasing costs will likely continue for several months.

"This is our new reality," he said

"Prices aren't going to be dropping at all and so we should change our expectations -- we should expect to pay more for food moving forward."

Charlebois anticipates the higher food prices will start to level out sometime around March.

"It's extreme. Everything has gone up. Not double, not triple, but almost quadruple. A lot of prices have gone up," said one Calgarian who had just finished her grocery shopping Wednesday afternoon.

Pushing up the prices are supply-chain constraints, higher demand and labour force shortages that are increasing employee costs.

Gas prices are also expected to hover higher than normal for a little while, experts say.

"We're really in the first inning of what is going to be a surge in energy prices," said Dan McTeague, the president of Canadians for Affordable Energy.

"Not just gasoline, but of course natural gas and propane and other products we desperately need."

StatsCan also released city-specific inflation rates, though the agency cautioned the numbers could fluctuate due to smaller samples.

Calgary's inflation rate for September was 4.2 per cent, down from 4.9 per cent compared to the previous month.