Consumer Price Index
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) may be used to express a sum of money, established at a point in time in the past, in current dollars. The last published value from Statistics Canada was for March 2008. The value 113.2, entered for December 2008, was calculated on the assumption of a constant annual rate of inflation of 2.0% from March 2008 continuing to December 2008.
Using the values from the Canada CPI, the value of any sum established at any time since 1978 can be expressed in terms of current dollars. For example, to convert the amount $40,000 awarded in January 1990 to an equivalent value in December 2008, we can make use of the CPI as follows:
(113.2/76.7) x $40,000 = $59,035,
where 76.7 is the CPI value for January 1990 and 113.2 is the value estimated for December 2008.
For your convenience, the CPI values for British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario are also provided in .pdf format below.
You will require Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these files. If you do not have Acrobat Reader you can get it here:
