The Prime Minister of Canada has been ac- cused by a former RCMP security director of authorizing illegal activities and then saying he’d deny any knowledge of them. That’s heavy stuff. . John Starnes, ex-head of the 1,900-member Mountie security service, said on television recently that he told Pierre Trudeau on one occasion a-dirty trick would have to pulled which was quite outside the dictates of the law. : Starnes - says Trudeau's reply ‘was: “Well, Mr. North Vancouver District residents will be asked the same two questions on Sunday -shopping as residents of the City, during the November municipal elections. Given the enticing possibility of asking residents to express their feelings on one other issue, North Van District council members could not come to an agreement on any one Starnes, if you are caught, of course I shall have to deny any knowledge of it.” Does this sound like a line from a bad script? It does, but ['m more inclined to believe Mr. Starnes than Mr. Trudeau. Too bad Trudeau didn’t bug his own office, like several chief executives did topic, and decided to stick with the Sunday shopping issue. The council Monday voted to prepare two bylaws; one allowing wide-open Sunday and holiday shop- ping, the other dealing with just home building centres. When the referendum results are calculated, council can then procede with the bylaw that receives more than 50 per cent support, although they are in America. We'd be able“to demand the tapes. We can’t.. Otherwise the Situation is parallel to the -events: that led to the fall of © Richard Nixon. if Trudeau did give the nod to criminal activities, as Starnes said he did, and if he was also told, as Starnes says he was, that the Mounties had been doing “illegal things” for 20 years, and if he decided in his _ infinite wisdom ta do absolutely not compelled to pass either of them. Council was informed there were sufficient ballot boxes to put one other question to a referendum during the election. Biennial elections, the size of council, amalgamation, and subsized housing, were all suggested as issues wor- thy of getting citizen input. But council members could © not come fo an agreement on the single most important Maybe Now Is The Time To Remodel! If you planning on renovating your bathroom before Christmas, now is the best time to begin, and may we suggest you begin with us! Drop in and discover the finesf in designs with the sales and in- stallation experts at the largest bathroom: showcase on the North Shore! To Serve You Better, We Are Open Friday Night Showroom Hours Monday Through Phursday 8 30am I riday Yam Saturday 10am 9pm 2pm 4 300, LUXURY RENOVATIONS 211 W. 1st St. North Vancouver 987-3055 “SERVING YOU SINCE 1969" nothing about it, then he aided and abetted a crime (many crimes) as surely as Nixon ‘was a co-conspirator in the Watergate burglary. — I think Trudeau ought to - be impeached. , Of course, this being Canada, no such legal mechanism exists. For the equivalent of an im- ' peachment to take place, the Liberal Party would cither have to hack him-to pieces behind closed doors or drag him before a party con- vention -- rather as though Nixon's fate had been left in the hands of Republican Party stalwarts instead of the U.S. Congress, the courts and the media. Well, enough Trudeau- bashing for today. My arm is sore. My main. complaint -- since there’s no chance of _the prime minister being issue. In a number of cases council members said it would be impossible for the public to be given enough information on the topic to make an intelligent decision. Alderman John Lakes said the main idea of teferen- 689- 2867 dragec d »efore the courts in manacles > is the total cop- -out which lies at the heart of the McDonald Commission ‘report on the RCMP. ‘The Mounties have been made the scapegoats. That fact is so obvious I have no doubt the net effect of the McDonald Com- mission will be to create a great deal of sympathy for the. RCMP in the public mind. : We all know they're guilty as sin and that they were routinely abusing the law. That's the gist of the com- mission’s findings. No one —- not even the Mounties -- denies the fact that they pulled all sorts of illicit capers. Also, there's no point being over sentimental about the Mounties. They’re great when your kid is lost, sometimes they make decent rict to get shopping referendum | dums seems to be to get a bigger turnout for municipal elections. North Van City council decided last month to hold a two part referendum on Sunday shopping § after originally approving and then rejecting the idea. Landscaped waterfront and view lots, serviced with water and SCWCT, Includes boar moorage connis courts, central lodge, riding stables plas A COmnOn tnterese ro dad SOO ae re operating cattle and sheep ranch Only 20 menuees trom Horseshor Bay For more informacion call ocean /ide ecalty corp MP rd Ma corsa Street, Namouver BC NE detectives, and they're nice to have around if you want to make'.a speech. against seal- hunting in Newfoundland and you don’t want to be torn apart by the mob. -Apart. from. ‘these _ basic functions as keepers of the peace the Mounties also serve as a combined FBI and CIA. While sometimes they play it like Keystone Kops, they.were among the first national internal. security forces in the-world-to. latch ontouse of the computer for large-scale surveillance. Proof of the awesome efficiency of this Big Brother side of Mountie behaviour lies in the fact ‘that 1.3 million indexed names have been collected by. the RCMP in: the .course’ of.;their in- “ternal “spying operations, That’s one out of 20 of us, folks, being watched. Having acknowledged that there is obviously a dark side to the force, I am still left with’ the rather clear im- pression that the politicians responsible for the RCMP deliberately. blinkered themselves, and now they're trying to pretend to be squéaky clean. Dirty, dirty. TORCHY’S SKATE SHARPENING Allthis month *15° 155 E. 1st-985-5503