Manning told legislators the creation of the new territory, Nunavut, means that it will require a new senator. (Actually, Manning was wrong and it will be the West that needs a senator. Senator Willie Adams, of Rankin Inlet, will simply become Nunavut's senator when division occurs next year.)

And, the Reformer decried the fact this person will be appointed the usual way and not have to be elected.

While on the surface, Manning's views seem easy to accept -- after all, who's against democracy? -- they fall apart upon closer examination.

If, that is, you're one of those rare types (like me) who actually sees nothing wrong with party patronage in the Canadian political system.

In fact, I say thank God partisanship still runs thick in our system. We're a better country because of it.

Whether we like it or not, the party system in Canada has served us well. Since Confederation, it has forced Canadians from all regions to work together in a single cause while MPs are in Ottawa.

Parties have forced people of divergent interests to put aside petty regionalism and Þght for a common goal. At the same time, it has forced governments to take into account regional considerations when designing policies.

And, the system has forced MPs from all sides to form alliances, compromise (that greatest of all Canadian attributes) and work to understand the folks from other parts of the country.

So, if a person -- a former premier, party organizer, veteran cabinet minister, constitutional scholar, social worker or whomever -- has worked a lifetime for their party, and, by extension, country, what is so wrong with putting them in the Senate?

As a taxpayer, I see nothing wrong with paying a few pennies out of my pocket each year so these people can continue to have a voice on the national scene. Countless senators -- Eugene Foresy, David Croll, Len Marchant -- who single-handedly forced Ottawa to honor aboriginal war veterans -- and others have made outstanding contributions to the body politic in Canada.

So, when it comes time to providing the western NWT with a new senator after division, let's leave it up to the prime minister, whomever that might be in 1999.

Looking around the West, I see a whole bevy of talented senators-in-waiting who could represent the North well in the Red Chamber.

There are scholars, politicians, educators, business leaders and outstanding citizens of all types just waiting for the prime minister's call.

While Manning's argument -- like many of his positions -- might seem right when you're thinking with your gut, there's more to the issue when you use your head. An elected senate will make our system unworkable and more American-like.

As to the regional arguments, who is going to be the one that tells Don Morin that he doesn't truly represent the North on national concerns and that a senator does?

And, to those party warhorses out there -- of all political parties, even Reform -- start holding your heads high again. Our system needs you to continue your work as it betters us all. You give your time and money to ensure a better country. And, you don't sit back and complain like the others. You get involved and try to change things to suit your views.

The party system is under attack by regional barons like Manning and Gilles Duceppe. It's time we all defended our system from simplistic notions of politics.

Our country is much more complicated than that.

I won the country's highest journalism award this week. There is curiously little joy in it.

I was in Toronto on Saturday night where I was given a National Newspaper Award for work I did in Port Hope, Ont., concerning the closing of the hospital there. But it wasn't just a hospital. It was my hospital. It was in my town.

The reason it was not a totally happy experience was this: the Port Hope hospital is all but gone now. Most of its services have been moved from a centrally-located, clean, efÞcient building in Port Hope to a decrepit, landlocked, rat-infested hospital in the neighboring town of Cobourg where the third-œoor toilets don't œush and the few operating rooms aren't large enough. Because it is cheaper to put them there.

It was all too ironic. On the very day we were named as one of 48 Þnalists from a Þeld of more than 1,500 entrants from daily papers across Canada, the commission studying health care in Ontario announced the Port Hope hospital would be closed.

Days before the envelope was opened, myself and another reporter and an editor from the second-smallest daily in Canada were given plaques stating simply that we did the best work in the country in our category last year, the emergency room was shut down by the provincial government.

To say it was a bittersweet night understates my feelings.

• We uncovered a maze of false numbers, lies and deception at the heart of the hospital controversy and challenged them.

• We worked on little else for three months.

• We talked to people who donated a quarter of their small paycheques for years to build it in the 1950s.

• We covered grassroots organizations formed to Þght the provincial government and rallies that drew thousands of outraged town residents.

• We sat expressionless through meetings in Cobourg where people saw us as an enemy, who took up a microphone and sneeringly derided our personal competence, our ethics and our community in front of hundreds of people.

• We wrote until 2 a.m., then got up Þve hours later and did it again because we believed that what we were doing mattered a lot and we couldn't walk down main street without people telling us that they believed it, too.

• We fought like hell for that hospital and that town because the only alternative was to do nothing.