Year-on-year inflation in Yellowknife reached 4.7 percent in August, new data shows, its highest point since April 2023 as energy costs leap.
Significant increases in the cost of fuels like heating oil are a key driver behind the city’s rising cost of living.
“Fuel oil and other fuels rose by 46.4 percent between August 2025 and August 2026, while gasoline prices increased by 24.0 percent, resulting in an overall 18.1-percent increase in energy prices,” the NWT Bureau of Statistics stated in a Monday news release.
The Canada-wide year-on-year inflation rate was three percent.
Only Nova Scotia and Whitehorse – each above five percent – posted higher inflation than Yellowknife in the latest figures, though the NWT Bureau of Statistics notes the Yellowknife and Whitehorse figures aren’t strictly comparable with the rest of Canada because of how housing costs are estimated.
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Energy prices across Canada have soared in the past year. While Yellowknife households are now paying 18 ercent more for energy (of all kinds) than they were a year ago, that increase is in the middle of the pack nationwide.
In just one month between July and August this year, the NWT Bureau of Statistics reported, Yellowknife fuel oil prices jumped more than 25 percent. The extraordinary 46-percent year-on-year rise is attributed to factors like the war between Iran, the United States and Israel.
Put another way, using the baseline figures of the Consumer Price Index, if your monthly fuel oil bill was $100 in Yellowknife in 2002, the same amount of fuel would have been $309.60 in August last year and $453.40 in August this year.
Prices rose in all major areas of household spending, not just energy, though year-on-year inflation in food prices was not so severe at 3.4 percent in Yellowknife.
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What about outside Yellowknife?
In the NWT, Statistics Canada only produces a monthly inflation update for Yellowknife. Inflation isn’t reported in the same way for smaller NWT communities.
Some smaller communities have a temporary buffer against the likes of heating oil price increases because their fuels are supplied by the NWT government, which bulk-purchases its fuel several times a year and adjusts prices accordingly. What residents of those communities pay depends on the price the GNWT can get when it purchases the fuel.
But not every community is covered by the program as some places have private fuel suppliers. In Norman Wells, for example, the CBC reported on Tuesday that residents may close some buildings for the winter season to reduce extreme heating costs.
