A former member of Parliament from Manitoba has been charged after a stockpile of ammunition and firearms — including an antique cannon — and $300,000 in cash were seized from a Dauphin home last week.
Manitoba RCMP charged Inky Mark, 78, with a dozen firearms-related charges, including firearms trafficking, possession of property obtained by crime, unsafe storage and careless use of a firearm.
In total, RCMP seized 439 firearms from Mark’s property, Mounties said at a news conference Monday morning.
Inky Mark at his campaign party headquarters in Dauphin while waiting for election results to be announced in 2015. Mark is facing a dozen firearms-related charges. (Tim Smith / Brandon Sun files)
It is expected to take investigators weeks to sort through the arsenal and determine how many of the weapons were illegally possessed, but police have already identified three guns that are believed to have been illegally trafficked, and one that had a tampered serial number, RCMP Cpl. Barry Kirby said.
“At this point in time, we are still investigating. We still have a lot more exhibits to process, a lot more things to look at,” Kirby said.
The charges are the result of a months-long investigation dating back to late March, when RCMP were notified that firearms charges had been laid in the United States against another Dauphin man, 73-year-old Wilfred Kachurowski.
Mounties conducted their own investigation and searched Kachurowski’s Dauphin-area home, resulting in more charges against him.
Information was uncovered during that search which revealed some weapons were purchased by a second suspect and never lawfully transferred. Officers secured a warrant to search Mark’s home on July 7, at which point they discovered the cache of weapons, Kirby said.
The relationship between the two men is unclear, he said.
RCMP did not comment on a possible motive.
Mark does not have a previous criminal history.
RCMP HANDOUT
RCMP seized 439 firearms from Mark’s property, but it will take weeks to determine which are illegally owned.
“We know he’s a firearms collector, but that’s really all we know at this time,” Kirby said.
“You can possess as many firearms legally as you want to possess. Where it goes into the criminal realm is when you get into the trafficking of the firearms, the unsafe storage, the unauthorized possession of certain firearms.”
Weapons seized from the home are now in the possession of the RCMP and will remain in storage until Mark’s case proceeds through court, Kirby said, adding a judge will decide then what happens to the weapons.
He confirmed Mark’s property was surrounded by signs displaying political messages.
Mark is a former mayor of the City of Dauphin, and previously represented the riding of Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette (now known as Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa) as an MP between 1997 to 2010. He was first elected as a member of the Reform Party of Canada, which then became the Canadian Alliance during the following 2000 election.
Mark won the riding again as a Conservative in 2004 and held the seat for that party during the 2008 election. He resigned in 2010 and ran again for mayor of Dauphin, but was unsuccessful.
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He then returned to federal politics during the 2015 election, running as an independent and losing in a landslide to Conservative Robert Sopuck.
RCMP HANDOUT
RCMP obtained a search warrant for Mark’s home on July 7, at which point they discovered the weapons.
In 2016, Mark told the Free Press the Conservative Party of Canada had revoked his party membership. He alleged it was an act of retaliation for running against Sopuck in the previous year’s election.
Mark’s relationship to the Conservatives had been strained for some time. He was critical of former prime minister Stephen Harper, who he described as a “dictator” and accused of moving the party away from small-c conservative values.
At the time his party membership was revoked, Mark said he would move on from politics and spend his retirement enjoying hobbies like flying and shooting, the Free Press reported previously.
tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca
Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press’s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.
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