The June CPI numbers played out according to form. Happily, the good people at Statistics Canada went to great lengths to point out exactly how and why the y/y headline number was negative, so – with the notable exception of the Globe and Mail – journalists were able to put together stories that weren't teeth-grindingly stupid.

Here is the June 2009 version of my series of graphs of inflation rates of core CPI – the series that matters for monetary policy:

Average core CPI inflation over the past three months has now moved above the Bank of Canada's 2% target. A few more months like this, and we can start to forget about the deflation that darkened our doors in the first quarter of 2009.