OTTAWA— Jason MacDonald, chief spokesman for Stephen Harper, is leaving his post and the prime minister has reached into one of Canada’s iconic retailers for his replacement.

MacDonald, a 43-year-old married father of two daughters, took over as director of communications to Harper in September 2013 — a gruelling job for a demanding master that has been a revolving door, and not just since the Conservatives won power in 2006.

MacDonald was Harper’s eighth communications director in nine years, his 13th since Harper returned to politics in opposition in 2002.

As chief spokesman, MacDonald steered government communications through a trying time as the Tories were still reeling from fallout of the Senate expenses scandal and the resignation of Harper’s chief of staff Nigel Wright over a $90,000 payment to suspended Senator Mike Duffy.

MacDonald leaves next week, and in early March will join Hill and Knowlton’s Ottawa office, where he will handle corporate communications files. He will not be permitted to lobby his former employer under the Conservative government’s Accountability Act.

MacDonald’s replacement is Rob Nicol, once a top communications aide to former Ontario premier Mike Harris. Nicol joins Harper from the executive offices of Canadian Tire where he’s been since 2010. Prior to that, Nicol managed government and media relations for 407 ETR, the company that operates the toll highway north of Toronto.

Nicol is said to be a good fit as he brings public and private sector experience in large organizations, and had previously worked on federal Conservative campaigns, including full time on the 2008 election before Harper won his majority.

However, Nicol is unlikely to change the media-averse style of his new boss, as none of his predecessors has despite some of their attempts.

Canadian Tire senior vice-president Duncan Fulton, himself a past spokesman for a former prime minister, Jean Chrétien, said Nicol is “serious, suit-and-tie, strategic communications guy.”

In the Canadian Tire workplace where the dress code is fairly casual, Fulton said, “Everyday Rob was in a suit and tie, he’s a small-c and big-C Conservative.”

“It’s a big loss for us because we love the guy,” said Fulton, but “there’s something alluring about being able to be a top adviser to the prime minister of the country.”

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MacDonald spent 18 months as Harper’s communications director, longer than some, and before that, two years as the government’s communications director for the aboriginal affairs minister. In 2011, he ran as a provincial candidate for the Ontario Progressive Conservative party.

“This is a tremendous privilege to do a job like this, and only a handful of people get to do it, and it comes with a tremendous responsibility and you get to see things and see how your government works and be a part of governing, and seeing that process up close in a way that most people never get to see it, and no one can ever take that experience away from you, but it doesn’t mean it’s easy to walk away,” MacDonald said in an interview.

Coming little more than a week after Harper lost one of his senior ministers, John Baird, and after this week’s defection of one of his MPs and parliamentary health secretary Eve Adams, it might be tempting to chalk up MacDonald’s departure as another blow.

However, the timing still allows a replacement time to get up to speed as Harper has promised he will not go to the polls before the Oct. 19 election date set down in law.

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