Prepared by the CIC Research Department

September 2006

Israel and Canada are often accurately portrayed as "fellow democracies." Both have enshrined in their political cultures basic precepts of democracy. These include constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of speech and assembly, universal suffrage, multiparty electoral systems, respect for human rights, a professional civil service, and the hallmark "checks and balances" on political power, such as an independent judiciary, independent press and independent police force.

While Canada has a bicameral parliament, comprised of the House of Commons and the Senate, Israel's legislative system is unicameral, centred exclusively around the Knesset. The members of the House of Commons are chosen directly through a constituency-based "first past the post" electoral system, and the senators are appointed by the prime minister, in consultation with the provincial premiers. The members of Israel's 120-seat Knesset are elected in an indirect manner, with their entry to the Knesset determined by their placement on party lists.

Unlike Canada, which is divided into 308 separate ridings, all of Israel is one big riding. The number of Knesset seats won by a party is based on its share of the popular vote.

Canada's electoral process is based on the British parliamentary tradition. By contrast, Israel's electoral system has its roots in the complex political compromises that were made in the early days of the Zionist movement and in the pre-state Jewish community (Yishuv) in mandatory Palestine.

In order to ensure maximum participation in the political enterprise unfolding in Palestine, each party and political faction was accorded a degree of representation roughly equivalent to its size and popularity. This system of proportional representation, forms of which are common in Europe, was adopted by Israel when it achieved statehood in 1948.

For the first four decades of independence, the percentage of the popular vote that enabled a party to win a seat in the Knesset was one percent. The percentage was increased to 1.5 percent in 1992 and to 2 percent in 2006.

This system of proportional representation, coupled with the low Knesset-entry "hurdle", historically, have prevented any one Israeli party winning a clear majority of seats in the Knesset, leading in turn, to the formation of the kind of complex coalition arrangements generally unseen in Canada.

Moreover, though Canadians aspiring to enter politics usually need the endorsement of their local riding associations and/or the national parties, for the most part we have not experienced the kind of horse-trading and backroom dealings that have traditionally typified the process by which Israeli political parties form their electoral lists.

The Head of State in Canada is the British monarch, represented by the governor general. By custom, he or she is formally appointed by the monarch, on the advice of Canada's Prime Minister.

Israel's Head of State, the President (Nasi), is formally elected by the Knesset. Historically, the election of the president has been perfunctory, with the candidate already being agreed upon by the major parties through informal consultations.

However, this has not always been the case. For example, in 2000, veteran Likud Knesset member Moshe Katsav defeated Labor's Shimon Peres in a tight vote to become Israel's 8th president.

The powers and responsibilities of Canada's governor general and the president of Israel are generally similar. Both represent their countries in official functions, administer oaths of office to senior government officials and supreme court justices, and receive the credentials of foreign diplomats. Both offices are empowered to invite the leader of the largest party in the legislature to form a new government.

While it is not unheard of for the governor general to comment on public policy, this has occurred only in exceptional circumstances. By contrast, Israeli presidents have more frequently used their office as a moral pulpit.

Between 1996 and 2003, Israelis chose their prime minister through a direct ballot. However, this electoral system did not provide any greater stability to Israel's complex political process, and Israel returned to the traditional single-ballot system with the 2006 elections to the 17th Knesset.

In both Canada and Israel, the prime minister-elect has a constitutionally defined period of time in which to form a government that is presented to the legislature for approval. In Israel, there is no legal requirement for cabinet ministers to be members of the Knesset, though all must be eligible to run for the Knesset. So it was that Shaul Mofaz served as minister of defence since November 2002 without ever becoming a member of Knesset.

Unlike Canada, where senior members of the governmental bureaucracy are professional civil servants, in Israel it is often the case that senior bureaucrats, including deputy cabinet ministers, are either political appointees or members of the Knesset.

This "politicization" of the senior civil service is one consequence of the many and complex compromises an Israeli prime minister must make to form a coalition government out of the chaos that arises from an electoral system comprised of, literally, scores of political parties and special interest groups.

To be sure, Israelis and Canadians are both able to boast that they have "multi-party" electoral systems. However, there are multi-party systems and there are multi-party systems! Canada's House of Commons is presently comprised of four political parties; by comparison, the 17th Knesset is comprised of a total of 12 parties.

Most analysts conclude that the latter case is a recipe for chaos and confusion, if not outright political stalemate.

As already noted, Israel's system of proportional representation, combined with the low threshold for winning seats in the Knesset, encourages the participation in the electoral process of an extraordinarily large number of political parties, representing a wide array of special interests and positions on the ideological spectrum.

Moreover, the electoral system militates against any one party winning a majority of seats in the Knesset. Indeed, in Israel's 58 years of statehood, there has never been a majority government.

Of course, minority governments and coalition governments are not unheard of in Canadian politics. However, given the limited number of parties contesting elections, coalition governments tend to be the exception rather than the rule in Canada. The reverse is the case in Israel.

In the final analysis, there are indeed many differences between the Israeli and Canadian political and electoral systems. The essential characteristic of the two systems, however, is that they share an overriding loyalty to and respect for democracy. Each has adapted their democratic institutions to the unique political challenges confronting them.

Of course, neither system is ideal. What system on earth is? But, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, while the Israeli and Canadian derivatives of democracy may not be perfect, they are infinitely better than any derivative of non-democratic government.