OTTAWA — John Gomery wasn't quite ready for the celebrity status that was thrust upon him by the federal sponsorship scandal, but he's resigned to his new title as Canada's Newsmaker of the Year. The veteran judge was the winner by a landslide as the top newsmaker of 2005 in the annual poll of the country's newsrooms by The Canadian Press and Broadcast News.

Gomery garnered 95 of 166 votes, far outdistancing the 21 votes that went to the infamous Karla Homolka, whose release from prison last summer revived painful, decade-old memories of her collaboration with Paul Bernardo in the slaying of two Ontario schoolgirls.

The irony of the voting -- for people on opposite sides of the judicial divide who made headlines for vastly different reasons -- was not lost on Gomery.

"It's not necessarily a compliment to be the personality of the year," he observed in an interview. "But I accept it as a compliment in my case."

Gomery's topping of headlines and newscasts across the country this year was so dominant that the Gomery commission was also picked as the top news story of 2005 -- a rare double win in the annual CP-BN surveys. The commission and its fallout was picked by 73 editors and broadcasters as the top story of the year. The murder of four Mounties by James Roszko near Mayerthorpe, Alta., was the second choice as the country's most important story, with 47 votes.

The first volume of Gomery's report, released Nov. 1 after months of dramatic hearings, helped bring down Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority government, plunging the country into a rare winter election campaign.

Martin himself was absolved of any blame for the sponsorship mess. But predecessor Jean Chretien and the Liberal party as a whole didn't fare as well.

Gomery found no evidence of personal wrongdoing by Chretien, but he held him politically responsible for not doing more to keep the program on the rails. A handful of Liberal organizers, some of them close to Chretien, were also fingered for running a kickback scheme that saw cash flow to the party from sponsorship contractors.

The inquiry made Gomery a household name and a familiar face on TV screens across the land - but especially in Quebec, the nerve centre of the scandal.

It was all a bit much for a 73-year-old who had toiled in relative anonymity since 1982 as a judge of Quebec Superior Court. Gomery suddenly found he couldn't step out the door to shop for groceries or take in a movie without a new-found fan offering a casual greeting.

"Generally a judge is perceived by the public as a severe, distant person," he said. "But curiously, the fact of being in their living room, on their television set, these people thought of me as a member of the family."

Virtually everyone who recognized him wanted to offer congratulations and encouragement, a pattern that he says persists to this day.

"The expression I hear most often, people will say: 'Hey, it's Judge Gomery. Keep at it, judge."'

Still others express the kind of adulation usually directed at rock singers or hockey stars: "Judge, we love you."

The reception from political professionals wasn't always so heartwarming.

Gomery sparked a storm with a series of media interviews a year ago in which he offered some pointed observations on the testimony he'd heard up to then. Critics accused him of pre-judging the issues and lawyers for Chretien demanded that he resign from the inquiry.

The former prime minister has since renewed the attack, going to Federal Court to contest the adverse findings against him in the Nov. 1 report.

Gomery has expressed regret for some of his early remarks to journalists, but insists he never pre-judged anybody or anything.

His next target date is Feb. 1, when he will deliver a second report outlining proposed political and bureaucratic reforms to avert future scandals. After that, he says, he'll take a long vacation with wife Pierrette Rayle, a judge of the Quebec Court of Appeal.

By the fall he hopes to be back on the bench of Superior Court to put in a final year before retirement.

"I think with much affection of the possibility of becoming anonymous again," he says. "It remains to be seen if that's possible."

The CP-BN year-end surveys have traditionally chosen politicians, and quite often prime ministers. But this year's results were different - Prime Minister Paul Martin, who was the Newsmaker of the Year in both 2003 and 2004, came in fifth, garnering only six votes.

There was no doubt in the minds of voters this year that Gomery dominated the news more than any politician or other Canadian newsmaker.

"Gomery confirmed what many Canadians already suspected; politics is a cynical and sometimes crooked business," said Rob Van Nie, assistant managing editor of the Windsor Star.

Added Bob Cox, editor of the Winnipeg Free Press: "The Gomery commission certainly deserves top spot as the year's best news story. Intrigue, fraud, threats -- with the fate of the country hanging in the balance. . . . Gomery's work and findings will forever change the way people think about the efforts of Jean Chretien's government to fight Quebec separatism."

Following Homolka in third place in the newsmaker voting was Conrad Black, the former media baron who is facing numerous charges in the U.S., with 11 votes. Finishing between Black and Martin with nine votes was the late Chuck Cadman, the Independent MP from British Columbia whose single vote preserved Martin's minority government last spring. Cadman, fighting cancer at the time of the May vote, died in July.

In the top news story voting, the NHL lockout was picked as the third most important story (21 votes), followed by the winter election campaign (eight votes) and the release of Homolka (eight votes).