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Justice John Gomery Named Time Magazine's Canadian Newsmaker of the Year for 2005 |
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Written by Wire Services
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Sunday, 18 December 2005 |
TIME Magazine has chosen Justice John Gomery - the now famous judge who "helmed the very public Inquiry into the ill-fated sponsorship scandal, in which a federal program was manipulated to create a Liberal-friendly slush fund and kickback scheme in Quebec" their 2005 Canadian Newsmaker of the Year.
TIME's annual Person of the Year double issue (dated December 26th, 2005, on
newsstands for two weeks beginning tomorrow) - was written by TIME's Canadian Bureau Chief Steven Frank. In one of his first interviews since his first inquiry report came out, Gomery told TIME that the appointment to oversee the commission was "'the opportunity of the lifetime,'" and that "'every judge dreams of doing a commission of inquiry like that.'"
Explaining the sheer size of the commission, Frank writes that "during public hearings in Ottawa and Montreal, the Gomery Commission heard 172 witnesses, who generated 25,731 pages of testimony. Despite the immensity of the project, Gomery produced his initial, three-volume, 1,052-page report by the Nov. 1 deadline he had promised all along. 'He worked like an ox,' says (Bernard) Roy, his chief counsel." Continues Frank, "and for three weeks in September 2004, suffering from a painful case of shingles, Gomery 'never missed a beat, never missed a day,' Roy says. What's more, he adds, Gomery made sure his staff kept up, as he ran 'the show like a regimental sergeant major.'"
Frank notes that Gomery was not well-liked by all, especially given the "sharpness of his tongue and pen." Writes Frank, "Among those he skewered was adman Paul Coffin. When Coffin testified that he couldn't remember exactly when he first learned that he would be the beneficiary of a large government contract, Gomery said, 'So, the winner of the lotto can't remember the day he won the lotto prize.' And at the conclusion of Coffin's testimony, Gomery dismissed him curtly: 'You are free to go someplace else.'"
Frank sums up TIME's selection: "For his outsize role under the public glare, for renewing a modicum of faith in democratic accountability at a time of unprecedented anger toward politics and politicians, and for handling a complicated and supercharged inquiry with authority, charm and passion, Justice John Gomery is Time's Canadian Newsmaker of the Year for 2005."
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