Booming prices for oil and gold coupled with weakness in the U.S. dollar helped to send the loonie higher on Thursday.
In afternoon trading on global currency markets, the Canadian dollar was up 0.73 of a cent at 80.97 cents US.
Earlier, the loonie briefly topped 82 cents US for the first time since Feb. 10. The rise in the dollar was spurred, in part, by rising commodity prices — as light, sweet crude oil for April was up $2.70 at $50.84, for example.
Gold for April delivery, meanwhile, hurtled up more than $67 to $956.60 US an ounce.
Investors were seen moving into commodities as they worried about possible inflation risks for the U.S. economy and moved out of the U.S. dollar.
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve said it would buy as much as $300 billion of U.S. government treasuries in a move to reduce interest rates and stoke the economy.
Canada's annual inflation rate rose in February to 1.4 per cent from the 1.1 per cent rate seen in January, Statistics Canada reported Thursday.
Economists had been looking for 12-month inflation to cool a bit to one per cent for February.
Higher prices for food and shelter were the primary reasons for the increase, Statistics Canada said.