Divorce Insurance: Should Men Be Forced to Take It Out? | Populism ... in Canada

The Arab world’s most populous nation is taking dramatic steps to tackle the effects of a surging divorce rate and rising costs of living.

If you cannot afford divorce, don’t get married. That’s the philosophy Egypt is turning to, on the back of skyrocketing living costs and escalating divorce rates. And it’s an approach that could be adopted more widely throughout a region traditionally not known for gender rights.

The number of Egyptian divorces rose by nearly 7 percent in 2018 to 211,500, up from 198,300 in 2017, according to the state-run Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS). The divorce rate, meanwhile, has climbed since 2010 from 1.9 to 2.2 divorces for every thousand Egyptians in 2018. At the same time, the marriage rate is falling, from just over 10 per thousand in 2016 to around 9 in 2018. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s government is battling to fix the problem.

Egyptian authorities are now trying to deploy a mandatory divorce insurance for all men looking to marry.

Maxime Bernier and his new People’s Party could swing Canada’s elections — and herald a populist movement to come.

"For decades now, there has only been one acceptable position among political intellectual elites: more and more and more immigration,” said Maxime Bernier at a rally in support of Canada’s newest political party in late July.

The 56-year-old Bernier was dressed in typically formal yet fashionable wear: a pink shirt and matching pocket square with a dark gray suit the same color as his hair.

“There is a taboo about this topic,” he continued, speaking to a packed ballroom in front of a blue-and-white backdrop dotted with the official logo of the recently formed People’s Party of Canada. “As soon as you raise a concern about the level of immigration, someone will accuse you of harboring anti-immigration views or being xenophobic.”

These storefronts sell creativity and education — not to mention supplies for superheroes and spies.

It’s been just under a minute since I walked through the door and already the cashier is fielding questions about a curious display of doughnuts. “Fresh ’n’ Delicious in 1985,” the sticker on the display case reads. Somebody wants to know if the doughnuts are actually edible. Someone else is asking about the robot milk in the back fridge. Maybe you can drink it and maybe you can’t — it does look to be straight from the cow, though the cashier isn’t keen on non-whimsical answers. “Simply mix in motor oil,” he says. And the doughnuts? “Everything is as it appears,” he intones. Well, not exactly.

The Time Travel Mart in central Los Angeles offers more than supplies to the would-be wormhole explorer. It’s also a creative space for kids, where local students ages 6 to 18 can meet at the back of the store each day to improve their writing and communication skills, receive help with homework from volunteers and publish stories. Children here are literally writing their own futures, probably as you read this.