An eye-popping number: Consumer prices rose 4.4 per cent last month versus September 2020, the highest level since 2003, according to Statistics Canada. That continues a months-long trend and follows a 4.1 per cent year-over-year increase in August.

What got cheaper: Nothing in the major categories StatCan considers. Food, shelter, household operations like utilities, clothing, transportation, health and personal care, recreation and legal drugs—all were more expensive. Transportation led the climb, with gas prices more than 30 per cent higher this year than last and a shortage of computer chips slowing the production of new vehicles.

Why it matters: High inflation eats into savings, and punishes people and businesses that can’t easily raise prices—whether for their labour or their goods. Central banks fight inflation by hiking interest rates, which makes investment capital harder to get. The Bank of Canada aims for annual inflation between one and three per cent.

How much of this is because of the pandemic: Certainly some. In all of 2020, the consumer price index rose just 0.7 per cent, the smallest annual increase since the 2009 recession. Part of what we’re seeing is a catch-up. And as with vehicles, some prices are rising because consumers are ready to buy things that suppliers just don’t have available to sell right now because of stalled factories and jammed cargo channels.

How much of this is because of Justin Trudeau: The Conservatives pinned responsibility on the federal Liberals’ pandemic support and other spending, suggesting that pumping money into the economy means more dollars chasing the same goods. On the flip side, U.S. inflation was 5.4 per cent in September and 3.4 per cent in the eurozone, so Canada isn’t a strange outlier.

Is this ‘transitory’? Last week CEOs of two large Canadian banks—RBC and National Bank—said there are more permanent economic changes underway that could keep inflation going even once the pandemic’s consequences are smoothed out, The Globe and Mail reported. One is aging populations reducing the labour supply (driving up workers’ pay); another is climate change interfering with agriculture (driving up food prices) and governments’ spending to reduce emissions.

Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem said the pandemic’s effects could take “a little longer than we expected” to work through, but he remains fairly serene about the medium and long term.

The central bank is due to issue its interest-rate decision next Wednesday. In September, it said it doesn’t expect to raise them before the second half of 2022; the Bank of Nova Scotia said today that starting next July, stomping inflation will require steady hikes