OTTAWA, Oct. 19 -- Canadians who heat their homes with oil are heading into winter facing a bill that Statistics Canada says is 57.8 percent higher for fuel oil and other fuels than a year ago, with the jump landing hardest in Atlantic Canada, where fuel oil is more widely used.

The agency's consumer price index rose 3.1 percent in September from a year earlier, up from 3.0 percent in August, and the acceleration was led by gasoline, which cost 27.8 percent more than a year ago against 22.8 percent in August. Excluding gasoline, inflation was 2.2 percent, down from 2.4. Gasoline also drove the September CPI inflation reading in the United States, as TEH reported last week.

That split is the problem for the Bank of Canada, which has held...