Policy alert

Jack Layton promises a cap on credit card rates.

The first policy announcement from the NDP campaign would allow the federal government to regulate credit card interest rates so that they could not be any higher than five points above the prime rate, which the Bank of Canada has currently set at three per cent. That would mean credit card companies could not charge more than eight per cent interest on the monthly bill — the same idea the NDP put forward on the 2008 campaign trail and then introduced in a private member’s bill last year.