(RTTNews) - Canadian consumer prices were little changed in September as prices at the pump continued to fall, according to data released Friday by Statistics Canada.

Consumer prices were 0.9% lower in September than they were in September 2008, following a 12-month decline of 0.8% in August, and equaling the 0.9% drop in July, the biggest in more than fifty years.

Excluding energy, the CPI rose 1.3% on yearly basis.

Price stability may give the Bank of Canada room to keep interest rates low. Earlier this month, Australia became the first G-20 nation to raise rates since the onset of the global economic crisis, fueling speculation that policy makers in Ottawa would follow closely behind.

The major contributor to the year-over-year decline in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in September was energy products, as it has been for a number of months. Overall, in the 12 months to September, energy prices fell 18.7%.

Consumers paid 23.0% for gasoline in September than they did a year earlier, compared with a 21.2% drop in August. Overall transportation costs fell 7.2% in the 12 months to September, making this component the most significant downward contributor to the drop in the CPI, the agency noted.

The primary upward pressure on the CPI came from food prices, which increased 2.8% in the past 12 months. However, this was the slowest rate of growth since June 2008.

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