Alberta records highest inflation rate in Canada for February [Video]

New data from Statistics Canada ranks Alberta as having the highest increase in inflation over the last year amongst all Canadian provinces and territories.

The latest Consumer Price Index report released Tuesday found that Alberta’s inflation rate rose for the second straight month to 4.2 per cent, from its previous 3.4 per cent in January.

The recent uptick is said to have primarily been caused by a spike in natural gas prices, which have risen by 15.1 per cent year-over-year.

Vijay Muralidharan, the director of R Cube Economic Consulting, says the increase stems from an uptick in transportation costs and the maintenance season taking place at natural gas refineries across North America.

“So in February we had about 1.6 million barrels per day of outages due to refinery maintenance predominantly in Texas and there’s going to be another 1.5 million barrels per day of outages coming up in Chicago,” he said.

“This is critical because there’s pipeline connectivity in Chicago, so …