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Former member of Parliament Inky Mark, who was arrested on a dozen weapons offences last month, has been hit with 26 more charges, after police say they took a total of 445 firearms and 26.5 kilograms of explosives from his Manitoba home.
RCMP say the 78-year-old was rearrested on new charges on Aug. 12 after an ongoing investigation.
Mark was arrested during a July 7 search of his home near the western Manitoba city of Dauphin and was initially charged with 12 weapons-related offences, including firearms trafficking, possession of a firearm with a tampered serial number, three counts of unsafe firearms storage, two counts of careless use of a firearm and two counts of possession of a prohibited device.
Police said last month they took 439 guns from his home and seized other items, including an antique cannon and ammunition.
RCMP said in a Wednesday news release that after processing the evidence seized in July, they determined 445 firearms were taken from the home. Of those, 295 were unsafely stored, 10 were prohibited and 11 were restricted or prohibited firearms that were not registered to Mark, according to police.
RCMP also now say they seized 26.5 kilograms of explosives — more than four times the amount licensed individuals are allowed to possess, according to police.
A number of the restricted or prohibited firearms were stored with readily available ammunition, and two firearms registered to Mark could not be located, the RCMP release said.
In total, 38 charges have now been laid against Mark.
The 26 new charges include weapons trafficking, three more counts of possession of a prohibited weapon, nine counts of possession of a restricted firearm/prohibited weapon with ammunition, and nine counts of possession of a firearm when knowing it is unauthorized.
He’s also been charged with another count of possession of a firearm with a tampered serial number, two counts of failing to report the loss of a firearm and having more than six kilograms of what RCMP called explosives.
The explosives were mostly Tannerite, a spokesperson for Manitoba RCMP said in an email to CBC News. Tannerite is a brand of explosive target used for firearms practice, and it is illegal to possess more than six kilograms of such reactive targets.
A few days after the initial charges were laid in July, Mark told CBC News that he broke the law by illegally transferring three guns, but denied he trafficked any.
Mark said at that point he’s been legally collecting firearms since the early 1970s, but some of those weapons are now illegal to own due to gun law changes over the years.
During the initial search of Mark’s home, RCMP also seized more than $300,000 in currency. Mark told CBC the cash was from property sales in Dauphin and denied it was connected with firearms trafficking.
RCMP also now allege that sometime between December 2024 and February 2025, Mark went unprompted to the home of a friend who had made a social media post about a coyote on their property, and handed that person a firearm and ammunition, according to Wednesday’s news release.
The person did not have a gun licence and did not use the weapon, which was later recovered by investigators. The friend has not been charged with any offences, while the weapons trafficking charge against Mark was related to this incident, the RCMP spokesperson said.
Mark is a former MP who represented the Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa riding. He was first elected to Parliament in 1997 and resigned his seat in 2010, after serving first with the Reform party, and later with the Canadian Alliance and finally as a Conservative.
He ran unsuccessfully for the seat again in 2015 as an independent.
Prior to his time as an MP, he was elected mayor of Dauphin in 1994. He ran unsuccessfully for that position again in 2010.
