Hudak’s new mouthpiece goes off the rails

Where The Sun don’t shine

Tim Hudak, the besieged Ontario Tory leader, recently tapped Mark Bonokoski as the party’s new director of communications.

Here at Frank, we hold the longtime Sun publisher/columnist (fired), in the highest esteem.

But seriously, is Bono the guy you want driving the bus out of the electoral wilderness?

Not so long ago, when he was publisher of the Ottawa Sun, Bono had to deal with Quebecor brass, then visiting the capital to inspect their newly-acquired trash tab.

It fell to Bono to give the Quebecor suits the grand tour. But midway through his apple polishing presentation, they demanded to see the Sun’s printing plant in Ottawa’s east end.

Suddenly, Bono was at a loss. “Press? Printing? Homina…homina…er…”

“Oui! Allons!”

Bono was terrified his new masters would go apeshit if they saw the expensive billboards around Ottawa that featured his grinning mug. While other papers in the Sun Media chain promoted their marquee columnists, Bono fluffed himself, figuring Ottawa readers actually gave a crap about the wannabe famous publisher.

So he told the Quebecor limo driver to follow him as he drove a long and tortuous route that carefully avoided all billboards. Alas, he lost his way and the Quebecor gang found the plant on their own, ahead of Bono.

When he finally arrived, one of the Quebecor thugs sneered, “You’re the publisher and you don’t even know where your printing plant is?”

Quebecor sacked Bono the following year.

Fast forward to September, 2013.

On the same morning of the train-bus collision in Ottawa that left six people dead, Bono fires off a news release that contains the phrase “train wreck” in reference to the provincial Liberals.

Whoops! The Tories had to scramble out a second press release with regrets for “the appearance of insensitivity.”

Note to Hudak: There’s more where that came from.

The countdown has begun.