We, as a society, have to find the right balance between protecting people from themselves and letting people make their own choices. When it comes to interest rates on loans we already have laws prohibiting 'usury' (laws which are regularly circumvented by paid day loan companies through the use of "fees"). So the issue is not whether rates should be regulated but whether the maximum allowable interest should be lowered. I think it would make sense to tie legal limit to the BOC rate and lower to 20% to reflect the drop interest rates over the last 20 years. I don't think it should go much further than that.
Look, I'm not saying they shouldn't make a nice profit of this. But I've seen and read stories about the predatory practices of these credit card companies, which love to extend credit to poorer people, knowing they'll maintain monthly balances. I think the payday loans are a disgrace. There weren't any, that I can recall, when I was younger. Now they sprout like weeds, and the ones who use them the most are the ones who understand them the least. We need to educate people in high school about how loans and financing works. Because an astonishing number don't understand the additional money they are paying out. There was a story today about how so many car companies encourage people to extend their loans for seven years, emphasizing how low their bi-weekly payments are (bi-weekly is a relatively new term lenders use to make the cost seem lower). I experienced this myself when I bought a car recently, and when I bought one five years ago. The salesmen kept telling me the biweekly cost, and I had to keep insisting that they shut up about the biweekly payments and give me the final price.
The story of how the poor get poorer and the rich get richer is not entirely about salaries. It's also about how people get screwed over by business when they don't understand the legal jargon in sales agreements and don't understand how financing works against them.