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Moose FM CHMS 97.7 - Commentary

Mark BonokoskiMark Bonokoski

Cottage Country Commentary

Gun Sanity From Cops

Saturday, 28 August 2010 00:00
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For those of us who live north of the Centre of the Universe — meaning Toronto — word that rank-and-file cops, the front-liners, think the national gun registry is a crock should give us a bit of a lift.

Rural folk, farmers and hunters have been painted as criminals by the anti-gun crowd, which emanates primarily from Toronto, and now we have street cops telling their own chiefs that their support of the gun registry is a foolish pursuit.

Thank Randy Kuntz, a 22-year veteran of the Edmonton Police, for bringing this to the fore in time for the Commons vote this autumn which will hopefully see this billion-dollar boondoggle head for the scrap yard.

Kuntz surveyed 2,600 police officers from across the country, and a full 2,400 of them wanted the registry scrapped.

“The registry hasn't saved anybody,” said Kuntz, which is something I have been saying for years, both in my Toronto Sun column, and in national editorials written on the subject.

The police chiefs support it for one reason and one reason alone: Optics …. The false perception that the registry does good.

The cops whose boots are to the pavement know better. And now they have said so.

 

Farewell Milt McGhee

Friday, 27 August 2010 00:00
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A funeral service was held Wednesday at St. Paul's United — the church on the hill — for one of the master story tellers of this town.

Milt McGhee, born and raised in Bancroft like his father before him, would have been 82 in November.

He was a treasure.

I have sat for long periods of time in the back of McGhee's Clear Water Shop on Bancroft's main drag, listening to Milt spin tales of the characters of this town, complete with his own personal sayings that would have you falling off your chair in laughter.

Each and every time, he made my day.

This town will miss Milt McGhee, and my condolences go out of his daughters — Lori, Leslie, Jennifer and Tracy — and his wife, Nan, who married him 18 years ago next month.

Milt was predeceased by his first wife, Jean, mother of his children, and son, Mark, who died two years ago at the age of 50, and who was truly one of this town's more memorable characters.

Today they're are all together, with Mark no doubt sweeping some heavenly parking lot, and Milt tinkering with the wiring of some celestial star.

And entertaining everyone with the stories that no one could tell better.