- Prior was +0.4% m/m
- PPI +7.8% y/y vs 5.4% prior
- Raw materials price index +12.0% m/m vs +0.6% prior
- Raw materials price index +23.6% y/y vs +8.6% prior
That’s not great on the PPI headline but downright scary on the raw materials price index. It’s not a big surprise given gasoline prices but that’s a problem for inflation.
Separately, StatsCan reported that March manufacturing sales most likely rose 3.5%.
For background, Canada’s two key producer price gauges — the Industrial Product Price Index (IPPI) and the Raw Materials Price Index (RMPI) — are published monthly by Statistics Canada, typically around the 20th of the following month. The IPPI measures prices received by Canadian manufacturers for goods sold at the factory gate, excluding indirect taxes, tariffs, and downstream transportation or distribution costs. The RMPI, by contrast, captures prices paid by Canadian manufacturers for key raw material inputs, including freight, net taxes, and duties — making it a useful leading indicator for pipeline cost pressures. Both are reported on a January 2020 = 100 base and feed into the calculation of real GDP by industry in the national accounts. While the IPPI does not measure the direct impact of tariffs, cross-border duties can influence the series indirectly through input costs and supply-demand dynamics — a factor that has drawn extra attention amid recent Canada-U.S. trade frictions.
January 2026 delivered a sharp upside surprise: the IPPI jumped 2.7% month-over-month and the RMPI surged 7.7%, led by an 18.2% leap in primary non-ferrous metals as gold, silver, and platinum-group prices extended their run.
February’s release, published March 20, showed a clear cooling in the monthly pace while year-over-year pressure stayed elevated. The IPPI rose 0.4% month-over-month and was up 5.4% from a year earlier — its 17th consecutive year-over-year gain. The RMPI climbed 0.6% on the month and 8.6% year-over-year. Energy and petroleum products led the monthly gain (+7.8%), with refined products up 8.2% as crude prices climbed from mid-February on rising Iran-U.S. tensions. Primary non-ferrous metals gave back some ground (-3.7%) after January’s spike, while meat, fish, and dairy prices fell 5.9%, the sharpest drop since July 2020, driven by tumbling poultry and pork prices.
