Inflation by province: where it is lowest and highest right now

Data for August 2026, the newest month Statistics Canada has published. The September figures come out on Monday, October 19 and I will update this page.

Inflation in Canada was 3.03% in August. But that national number hides a spread of nearly three percentage points between provinces — and Ontario had the lowest inflation in the country at 2.41%.

Every province, ranked

The five lowest

These five are the four most populous provinces plus Saskatchewan — together 37.4 million of Canada's 41.8 million people. But read the column carefully before concluding most Canadians have it easy: only two of them, Ontario and British Columbia, are actually at or below the national rate. Quebec, Saskatchewan and Alberta all sit above 3.03% even while ranking in the bottom five. The people living with inflation below the national figure number about 22 million — just over half the country.

The five highest

All four Atlantic provinces are in this group, and Manitoba joins them. Nova Scotia at 5.10% is running more than double Ontario's rate — the widest provincial gap in the country, 2.69 percentage points.

The three territorial capitals

Here is something worth knowing before you read any "inflation by province and territory" list: Statistics Canada does not publish an inflation rate for Yukon, the Northwest Territories or Nunavut as a whole. It publishes one for each territorial capital city instead. Anyone showing you a territory-wide number is estimating it, or mislabelling a city.

Whitehorse at 5.93% is the highest of the fourteen figures on this page — higher than any province, and higher than the national rate. Yellowknife rose the most in a single month of anything shown here, from 3.41% in July to 4.72% in August.

Ontario against the national rate

This is not a one-month fluke. Ontario has come in below the national rate in every one of the last 14 months. The gap in August was 0.62 of a percentage point.

Ontario is also still the only place on the list within shouting distance of the Bank of Canada's 2% target.

Why a mortgage broker is writing about this

Because of one uncomfortable fact: the Bank of Canada sets one interest rate for the whole country.

It does not set a rate for Ontario and a different one for Nova Scotia. It looks at the national number — 3.03% in August — and at its own core measures, and it makes a single decision that lands on your mortgage no matter which province you live in.

So if you are in Ontario, your local inflation is 2.41%, but the decision that reaches your mortgage is made on the national figure of 3.03%. If you are in Nova Scotia at 5.10%, the opposite applies — the national picture looks calmer than your grocery bill does.

To be precise about the chain, because it matters: inflation is not what your mortgage is priced off. Fixed rates follow Government of Canada bond yields. Variable rates follow your lender's prime, which follows the Bank of Canada's policy rate. Inflation is one of the things the Bank weighs when it moves that policy rate. It is two steps back from your payment, not one.

The next Bank of Canada decision is October 28, 2026, and the September inflation figures land on October 19 — nine days before it. That release is the one worth watching.

How to read these numbers without getting fooled

1. Year over year, not month to month. Every figure here compares August 2026 with August 2025. Monthly changes are noisy and seasonal.
2. Provinces are not cities. Statistics Canada publishes both, and they differ. Toronto, Ottawa and Thunder Bay each have their own figure that is not the same as Ontario's.
3. "Lower inflation" does not mean "cheaper." It means prices still went up over the year, just by less. Ontario's 2.41% means things cost about 2.4% more than last August — a smaller increase than Nova Scotia's, not a decrease. And note this is not a slowdown: a year ago Canada's rate was 1.85%, so inflation has sped up since, not eased.
4. A low rate on a high base is still expensive. Ontario has the mildest inflation and some of the highest housing costs in the country. Those facts sit together comfortably.

Source. All figures calculated from Statistics Canada Table 18-10-0004-01, Consumer Price Index, monthly, not seasonally adjusted, all-items, August 2026 release (published September 14, 2026). Year-over-year changes computed from the published index values for August 2026 against August 2025. Core measures (CPI-trim, CPI-median) from the Bank of Canada. Population shares from Statistics Canada Table 17-10-0009-01, quarterly population estimates, July 1, 2026. Table 18-10-0004-01 publishes all-items CPI for 30 geographies: Canada, the ten provinces, sixteen metropolitan areas, and the three territorial capital cities of Whitehorse, Yellowknife and Iqaluit. It does not publish a territory-wide CPI for Yukon, the Northwest Territories or Nunavut. This page compares Canada, the ten provinces and the three capitals — fourteen of those series. Figures as published and subject to revision by the source. This is general information, not financial advice.