How many political parties are needed to run (ruin) a nation?

Canadians woke up yesterday to a new political reality. The Conservatives won a commanding majority, the Liberals were almost annihilated, the NDP almost tripled their seats in the House and became the official opposition for the first time, and the Bloc Quebecois more or less disappeared from the political map.

Israelis can only look on with envy at a country where a majority government is still very much the norm. In its 63 years of statehood, Israel has never had a majority government. And if the electoral system doesn't change, it never will. We are blessed with an abundance of small parties, each wanting a much bigger slice of the pie than its size warrants.

Israel is so fragmented that even a coalition made up of two or three parties is very much a wet dream. 33 political parties ran in the last Israeli election, but only 13 parties received more than the 2% of votes needed to enter the Knesset (Israeli Parliament). Israel is governed by proportional representation and the number of seats a party is awarded depends on the percentage of votes it receives. There are 120 seats in the Knesset, and the present coalition government required a coalition of 6 of the 13 parties in order to obtain a majority of seats (66).

In Canada, the situation is quite different. There is no proportional representation where candidates enter the House of Commons simply because they are high enough on the party list. Rather, they have to fight tooth and nail in their constituency (riding) in order to win a seat in the House. Here they are much more accountable, for they have a constituency to respond to after they are elected and are just not another number on a party list. This is apparently why small parties have so little influence in Canadian politics. It is one thing to collect votes throughout the nation in order to build up your total percentage of votes. It is quite another thing to obtain enough votes in one specific riding to defeat the candidates of the big political parties. The Green Party did it in one B.C. riding in this election. They put all of their efforts in getting their leader elected there. But while that one seat in the House will provide more opportunity for their voice to be heard, they still have little leverage.

You’d think that Israel would have learnt its lesson by now and would be ready for an electoral change to help it out of this political quagmire. But there is no sign that this will happen soon, and I will let you in for a little secret as to why it won't.

Israelis love to argue. They will do anything for a good argument. It is said that if two Israelis argue, there will be three opinions. A two or three party system offers too much stability for the Israeli mentality. How could the whole Israeli population fit itself into just two or three political parties? Where is there room for the chaotic diversity that Israelis are so fond of? Israelis have a natural flair for creatively creating infrastructures which will ensure discord. And the Israeli electoral system is just one example. If it didn't exist, they would have to invent it.

You might think that Israelis would think twice about voting for a political party that has little chance of passing the 2% threshold. But just try to tell them that they are wasting their vote and see what an argument you'll get. And while Canadians have apparently voted for stability, there appears little room left for argument. Now where's the fun in that?

Just how English are you?

 Don’t you love ambiguous sentences? One of my favourites is “The peasants are revolting.” Interpretation often depends on your point of view. Sometimes we even miss the ambiguity. We can roll these linguistic creations around on our tongue and dissect them, right down to their deep structure. I used to love creating and labeling each structural node, drawing out of it a new branch, or a series of branches. Life made sense then, in first year Linguistics, until we were told that we were studying something which had already been discarded, Chomsky opting out for something much more abstract.

So, what does “English” mean for you? For some, it is just a language. For others, it has also historical and geographical connotations.

Watching the preparations for The Royal Wedding, I was reminded of the early years - my early years, that is. Canadians were just beginning to believe that they deserved a unique identity and culture. No attempt had been made to teach Canadian history before then. We learnt English (British) history and world history. Most of the few TV channels that we could receive were from the American side of the border, and what Canadian channels we did receive showed little Canadian content. Our exposure to literature was the English classics. A successful Canadian artist was regarded as an oddity (“Do you know that Lorne Green and William Shatner are Canadians?”) And even then, they could only reach stardom when they went to the States to live. We didn’t have our own flag, or anthem, and had to stand for the playing of “God Save the Queen” at public events. Which caused endless embarrassment for my parents, as I would slump back into my seat, grab a hold of the arm rests, and refuse to get up. “David, stand up!” my mother would urge in a hushed voice, giving me a gentle nudge with her foot. “She’s not my queen!” I’d mutter in return, sitting proud for Canadians everywhere. I believed, then, that I was a part of an invisible band of Canadian rebels, about to overthrow the monarchy on Canadian soil with such brave acts of defiance. And when, a few years later, our high school introduced an experimental scholastic literature program of “contemporary literature”, including not only Hemmingway and Steinbeck, but also contemporary Canadian authors, I credited this directly to my efforts.

But it was only after I had left Canada that Canadian culture came into its own. Wayne Gretzky, Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Second City, the Royal Canadian Air Farce, This Hour has Sixty Minutes… Suddenly successful Canadian artists, both in Canada and abroad, weren’t such a rarity anymore. Actually, it was often the case that I left a better world behind me after leaving. My parents got their first colour TV and a new washer (and very first) dryer after I left the house. But this was not always the case. The kibbutz was privatized after I left – actually the whole kibbutz movement fell apart. And Toronto never did win the Stanley Cup again. But I already told you that (although it is worth repeating).

So, how does the emergence of a real Canadian culture affect the Canadian perception of The Royal Wedding? After the fairy tale wedding extravaganza of Charles and Diana, a marriage which turned into a disaster, can anyone look at the upcoming wedding without at least a touch of suspicion? And maybe we should even ask ourselves if  the English Monarchy still holds any relevance for Canadians, at all. It appears that the older generation, who watched Elizabeth change from a young, somewhat naive monarch into a stern, yet commanding Queen, feels that the monarchy has exerted a significant influence on Canada as a whole. But for those of us who know the Queen only as a somewhat humourless and dour personality, very similar to a high school English teacher I once had, we see no reason for the monarchy at all, at least not in Canada. And yes, we were among those who were amused by Trudeau’s famous pirouette.

A lot of it is about presentation. Maybe William and Kate can be cute enough as a couple to convince people, not only in Canada, but also in England, that there is a reason for the monarchy to continue: Kate with her fashionable, attractive look and William with his awkward boyish British charm, somewhat similar to Hugh Grant in any one of his many movies. But will any of this matter if Charles is still to become King after his mother’s death, unless she outlives him out of spite for what he put her through with Diana? Neither Charles nor Camilla are about to win anyone over, let alone a nation. Calls are already being heard to appoint William as next in the line of succession, instead of Charles. Follow up on the excitement of The Royal Wedding, they say, as well as the Oscar buzz around “The King’s Speech”.

Otherwise, the monarchy may finally be recognized for the dinosaur it is, and we may be left with only a democratically elected Parliament in England – a scary thought, indeed. Oh, but then we have the House of Lords. So all is not lost.