I can't believe I'm defending him, but he does have - perhaps accidentally - two semi-valid points.

First: PPP and inflation are both calculated using a basket of goods - the exact basket differs between researchers or institutions. Typically you want your basket to be fairly broad, and reflective of the goods and services people actually buy. But the very poor buy a different mix of goods and services than the average person - even the average person in a very poor country. IF the price of the most basic staples has increased more than the price of other food, or if the price of food in general has increased more than the price of durable goods and appliances, then the PPP adjustment used by the World Bank for, e.g., Uganda MAY misstate the actual purchasing power of the very poor[1].

Second: If you think that official inflation rates are being tampered with[2] then you may look at other metrics than should drive inflation. One such is exchange rates. If the Canadian dollar is weakening against a trade-weighted basket of other currencies, then the purchasing power of the CAD is declining. (Or if you prefer, if a lot of CAD is being printed, then we have more supply of CAD, and lower demand, resulting in lower exchange rates.) In any case, this should be reflected in inflation. If it isn't then either there is a big untapped arbitrage opportunity[3], the inflation statistics are wrong, or (more than likely) there is some other factor at work[4]. So, no, you really can't use exchange rates to predict inflation, but you almost can. :)

[1]: In other words, it COULD be that the bank is saying that someone living on $2 a day is better off now than a year ago, because coffee makers are so much cheaper that it gives them more money to buy rice, which has only increased a little bit. But if the very poor only buy rice and not coffee makers, they could be worse off now since everything they actually purchase is more expensive, even if the "basket" is cheaper overall. The choice basket of goods matters, and it needs to be appropriate for the group being studied.

[2]: This can and does[5] happen. It could be as simple as fudging numbers, or it could be more complex - for example, my picking an unrepresentative basket of goods. In the US, the most common measure of inflation - CPI - excludes food and fuel costs. This is very appropriate for picking up monetary inflation, but less so for calculating the actual change in living costs people are experiencing. As you say, inflation is not a uniform concept; if a government pretends it is they can pick a measure favorable to them.

[3]: In this case, you could buy CAD using your local currency, purchase goods inside Canada for CAD, export them, and then sell them for your local currency. This would drive the CAD up, and/or drive the prices of goods inside Canada up, until the change in the exchange rate matched inflation. And people seeking such arbitrage opportunities is one reason why inflation and changes in exchange rates tend to match, very broadly, over the long term.

[4]: And there usually is; exchange rates are incredibly noisy, and influenced by everything.

[5]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/07/11/but-why-i...