Gord Young
Local News - Friday, December 30, 2005 @ 08:00

Monique Smith, Nipissing riding’s fax-waving member of provincial parliament, has been named top local newsmaker of the year.

Smith, who was the area’s top newsmaker two years ago, consistently made headlines in 2005, earning her the title for a second time, according to the sixth annual poll of city media.

After intense pressure from local politicians, Smith made a surprise announcement in April, arriving at a North Bay and District Hospital board meeting with a fax from Health Minister George Smitherman giving the go-ahead for the North Bay Regional Health Centre.

She later came under criticism as a member of an all-party committee that scaled back a trip to several countries to study electoral reform.

And Smith continued to capture headlines with the announcement of a Northern Ontario Highways Strategy made alongside Transportation Minister Harinder Takhar, her private member’s resolution highlighting the North’s nuisance bear problem and her involvement in Mattawa’s ongoing bid for a new hospital.

Local reporters, editors and broadcasters voted on a long list of names using a ranking system of five-through-one points.

Smith finished with 43 points and six first-place votes, followed by former councillor Tom Mason, with three first-place votes and deputy mayor and federal Conservative candidate Peter Chirico, who earned two first-place votes. Both Mason and Chirico finished with 28 points.

World champion aerials skier Steve Omischl and veteran Nugget journalist Arnie Hakala, who died in June, rounded out the Top 5.

Rod Johnston, of the Community Waterfront Friends, the North Bay and District Hospital board, North Bay city council, Liberal incumbent MP Anthony Rota and Mayor Vic Fedeli, finished off the Top 10.

Five of the six newsmaker winners in the annual media poll have been MPPs, including former premier Mike Harris in 2000 and 2001, Al McDonald in 2002 and Smith in 2003 and 2005.

Fedeli was named newsmaker in 2004, making him the only winner who hasn’t served at Queen’s Park.