Canada's annual inflation rate remained the same at 3.1% in November, according to Statistics Canada (StatsCan) on Tuesday morning.A few economists had thought that the overall inflation number would go down, but StatsCan explained that the higher prices for travel tours and housing expenses kept the annual rate unchanged.The agency stated that lower gas and cellphone service costs and some relief in grocery store prices helped keep the inflation rate steady.According to StatsCan, November marked the fifth consecutive month of food inflation slowing down. Grocery prices went up by 4.7% on an annual basis during November.The Bank of Canada (BoC) has been encouraged by the recent slowdown in inflation and the overall state of the economy. As a result, BoC chose to keep its key interest rate unchanged at 5% for the past few months.Forecasters anticipate that the BoC's next step will be to reduce interest rates once it becomes more confident that inflation is returning to the 2% target.
