Your rent went up by 30%, groceries went up by 20%, but fuel went down by 10% and a new TV went down by 30%. Also people stopped buying steak because it went up 50% so we'll drop that from the basket. Let's see... if we run the numbers by dropping goods that are experiencing rapid inflation, and then weight things in a way that has no correlation with the increase in cost of living experienced by 99% of the population we get... oh look at that! 4.1%! Great news for the person who buys a new TV with their groceries every week!
> Your rent went up by 30%, groceries went up by 20%, but fuel went down by 10% and a new TV went down by 30%. Also people stopped buying steak because it went up 50% so we'll drop that from the basket.
Do you understand how StatCan calculates the CPI? What their methodology is?
The CPI you see in the headlines is made of of various components (Shelter, Food, Transportation, etc), the proportions of which are determined by spending surveys:
As people change their buying habits the items that are tracked also change to reflect what consumers are spending. Here are the items in each category:
Do you think the CPI should reflect reality—i.e., track what people actually buy—or be some arbitrary list of stuff that has no relevances to people's actually basket of goods (e.g., coal and lard were removed/replaced in 1956; 35mm film removed in 2013; video rental removed in 2015).
It should also be noted that the number reported in the headlines is the national average, while the prices can vary widely depending on your location. So in the report for February 2024, the national number was 2.8%, but Alberta had 4.2% while Manitoba had 0.9%:
StatCan has a "Personal Inflation Calculator" where you can enter your own numbers/budget and find a number that may be closer to what's happening around you:
Then tell the average Canadian to stop buying televisions so that it does not show in spending surveys. If people stop consuming televisions it will stop being part of the Consumer Price Index, QED.
Meanwhile Food is 11% of the CPI because that is on average what the average Canadian spends on their average basket of goods per the spending surveys that StatCan gets.
Your rent went up by 30%, groceries went up by 20%, but fuel went down by 10% and a new TV went down by 30%. Also people stopped buying steak because it went up 50% so we'll drop that from the basket. Let's see... if we run the numbers by dropping goods that are experiencing rapid inflation, and then weight things in a way that has no correlation with the increase in cost of living experienced by 99% of the population we get... oh look at that! 4.1%! Great news for the person who buys a new TV with their groceries every week!