THE NUMBERS BEHIND EVERYDAY LIFE
From your grocery basket to your electricity bill. Make sense of changing prices in British Columbia and Canada.
ON THE ECONOMIC CALENDAR
Canada's next three scheduled economic releases.
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01 / THE BIG PICTURE
Follow the cost of a category over time.
A FIXED BASKET / BC VS CANADA
One of each published quantity, priced in the same month in both regions.
This percentage describes only these 10 items. It is not the premium for all groceries, a CPI inflation rate, or a household’s monthly food budget. Canada includes BC.
Difference (%) = (BC total ÷ Canada total − 1) × 100. All items use the latest month available for all 20 prices. Quantities stay fixed; product mix within each official average can change.
THE BIGGEST PRICE MOVES
Food & drink · ranked by the rise in published average price.
Among comparable published food prices, not all groceries sold in stores. Same month, 12 / 36 / 60 months apart. Average-price changes reflect product mix and are not CPI inflation. How we calculate rankings
02 / THE EVERYDAY BASKET
Actual published monthly averages in CAD, with product sizes and prior-year dollar changes. Switch the region above to explore Canada.
These are monthly regional averages from retailer transaction data, not today’s shelf prices or a specific supermarket’s offers. The reference month is shown on every card. Average prices reflect the products people buy, including changes in brands, pack sizes and promotions. Their percentage changes are not CPI inflation rates. These are regional averages, not individual store offers.
03 / HOUSING · RENT
Average monthly rent, including existing tenancies. Not advertised asking rent.
Privately initiated row and apartment rental structures with at least 3 units, CMHC Rental Market Survey. Existing and new tenancies are included; this is not what a newcomer will necessarily pay today. Condominium rentals, individual houses and ownership costs are excluded. City boundaries are used unless “metro area” is stated. No rent value is inferred from a neighbouring city.
Reliability: a = excellent, b = very good, c = good, d = poor (use with caution). Suppressed or unavailable values remain unavailable.
Home ownership is a separate category. Mortgage payments, property tax, strata fees and maintenance are not included in this rent figure.
CMHC source and survey notes ↗04 / GETTING AROUND
Regular unleaded gasoline · self-service · monthly averages.
Published cents per litre are converted to CAD per litre. The 50 L amount is an illustration at that monthly average, not a live pump quote. Vancouver and Victoria are city series, not a BC-wide average. Coquitlam is not separately published in this table. City and national comparisons use the same month.
Statistics Canada 18-10-0001-01 ↗05 / THE COST OF BORROWING
Canada-wide benchmarks · monthly averages · percent. Hover or tap the chart to explore a month. Use Tab and arrow keys for keyboard navigation.
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Canada-wide rates also provide context for BC. These are monthly averages, not today's rates. Mortgage rates are 5-year conventional posted rates, not negotiated offers or borrowers' effective rates. Each series is averaged separately from its published observations: policy rates use business days; prime and mortgage rates use weekly Wednesdays. No calendar-day weighting. These are our calculations, not the Bank's official monthly series. Missing months are not interpolated. Annual differences are percentage points (pp).
Bank of Canada · posted rates ↗ · Policy rate history ↗THE DETAILS MATTER
Statistics Canada table 18-10-0004-01. Monthly, not seasonally adjusted, 2002 = 100. Annual change compares the same month one year earlier. Charts rebase each series to 100 at the same starting month; index levels are not dollar prices or regional cost rankings.
View the CPI source ↗Statistics Canada table 18-10-0245-01. Monthly prices in current CAD. Product labels preserve the published quantity. Missing observations remain missing. Click a product to inspect its price history and source status codes.
View the retail price source ↗Independent project. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Statistics Canada, CMHC or the Bank of Canada. Source: Statistics Canada; calculations and presentation by Everyday Index. Statistics Canada Open Licence.