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On Journalists Jumping Ship & Our Mayor Waking Up, Ever So Briefly

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by Sean Orr | From the public trust to the private clutch: Justin Trudeau’s giant corporate giveaway. You had one job…

These corporate figures are rubbing their hands because Trudeau is about to put one of our great crises in their hands: the need for historic investment in the country’s infrastructure, for so long the domain of the state.

Good to know The Guardian has our backs, and um, the Toronto Sun? Without any mandate, Trudeau pushes privatization.

Trump and Trudeau suggest these investments won’t cost anything – as if finance capitalists are pixie angels who scatter magic dust that grows free transit, bridges and roads where it lands.

Why don’t we just dig a giant hole and throw all of our money down into it? Oh, because Cards Against Humanity thought of it first: Holiday Hole. “Where is the hole?” “America. And in our hearts”.

Not the kind of free-wheeling, fuck-the-rules, anarchy I had in mind: Trudeau attended cash-for-access fundraiser with Chinese billionaires

Attending the fundraiser appears to breach the ethical rules laid down by Mr. Trudeau after he took office. These “Open and Accountable Government” rules state “there should be no preferential access, or appearance of preferential access” in exchange for political donations.

New fighter jets could cost more than Liberals projected. Things are expensive. Math is hard.

If only Canada had a punk rock socialist dishwasher to rally behind, and I’m not talking about myself for once: Charlie Angus, ‘socialist punk rocker with a big heart,’ expected to announce federal NDP leadership bid.

On the other hand: Kevin O’Leary considering campaign staff for possible Tory leadership bid. I know the term “I just threw up in my mouth a little bit” is super 2013 but I actually just threw up in my mouth a little bit. Of course, it might have been the reishi mushroom my girlfriend puts in my coffee, but still.

Local billionaire supports other billionaire: Jimmy Pattison optimistic about Donald Trump. It’s OK because I’m equally optimistic that nobody cares what Jimmy Pattison thinks.

UPDATE: Premier turns down invitation to visit Vancouver’s pop-up injection sites. 175 DTES overdoses in last 5 days.

I guess she’d rather be chillin in her $3.6 million mansion: Exclusive: Premier’s landlord linked to Whitecaps owner. Wherein BIV give just enough information to figure out Clark’s exact address. I’d publish it here, but she’d just accuse me of bullying.

Meanwhile: B.C. child poverty rate higher than national average, says report. “Rural and single-parent families most at risk, says coalition of child and youth advocates”. Just hammer this one this home, Horgan.

Oh, and this: B.C. Liberals hire new photographer to document Christy Clark.

And that we’re the only province in Canada to charge MSP premiums: NDP calling for BC government to make changes to MSP premium. Also, just start bringing up Horgan’s name a lot. Horgan this. Horgan that. Did you hear what Horgan did? Like the scene in Being John Malkovich.

And when Clark paints you as a socialist and points out how horrible socialism was for Venezuela you say: “but Christy, all of the happiest countries in the world are social democracies. Google it.”

As if the BC media didn’t already have a credibility problem: Journalists Jumping to BC Liberal Jobs a Problem for Media Credibility.

This is not a dream: Vancouver mayor on housing crisis: ‘I never dreamed it would get this intense’. I know right? If only someone would have warned him once a week for the past six fucking years. Leadership…

So while the mayor tacitly admits that he’s had his head far up his ass, he still has the nerve to evict the tent city: Forced out tent city residents move to new location in Vancouver. Yeah, where they immediately come under attack from the VPD.

Bonus: ‘Punk is a McDonald’s brand’: Malcolm McLaren’s son on burning £5m of items

There are 5 comments

  1. Horgan is got lost, wandering in the interior, still licking Dix’s wounds, discovering why no one else wanted his job.

    Dix; Premier (Glen) Clark gives a casino license to an illegal gambling operation in Burnaby, a strip club frequented by Hells Angels. In exchange, he gets decks built at his home in Vancouver and a vacation property in the Okanagan. Then, a wonk named Adrian Dix forges a memo claiming Glen knew nothing. He sneaks into the Premier’s office, grabs the date stamp from his secretary’s desk, turns back the date and stamps as if it was created months before. Dix couldn’t even do that right; it was so sloppy that the attempt to derail a RCMP criminal investigation was immediately identified as fraudulent. The RCMP raid Glen’s house, he is charged with crimes, and resigns. Dix denies and denies, until he is put under oath in a formal investigation, then realizes he should probably confess. But psychopathically says they were mistakes, but it wasn’t “wrongdoing” and certainly weren’t “ethical mistakes.” BC’s Conflict-of-Interest Commissioner finds widespread fraud. Years later, Dix claims it was a “mistake of youth”. What do the New Dinosaurs do? Reward him with the top job of leadership. Brilliant. Dix was fired in March 1999, but received a fat NDP severance cheque, given by a guy who worked closely with Dix in the Lost Decade and was the best man at Dix’s 2007 wedding; John Horgan. Crime pays! Ask Jenny Kwan.

    Word at the New Dinosaur Party constituency level is fend for yourself; invoke the bitter, misinformed hate vote, grab the riding, save yourself a cushy job. The only question remains is will Horgy stick around to challenge the records for leader losses (Carole James – 2 losses, Dave Barret – 3 losses).

  2. Cool! I get a BC Liberal shill on my post! How lucky, it’s like a rare pokemon! Still trotting out stuff that happened 15 years ago while the current liberals have a scandal sheet a half mile wide. And the scandal she brings up? Glen Clark was cleared of any wrongdoing! Many lols.

    Frozen tuition, frozen welfare rates, worst child poverty, triple delete scandal, quick wins scandal, fired health researcher’s suicide cover-up, shredding legal contracts for teachers, convention centre boondoggle, cut and cover Canada Line boondoggle, LNG promises, no action on real estate crisis until too late, no action on fentanyl until too late, Site C, TILMA…

  3. I am not a shill, I’d love to support a progressive movement, but never the Dips – who’ve been calling themselves ‘new’ for over half a century, They’re like a website from the late 90s. BC NDP have a historic, natural position as a secondary, protest-vote, opposition party. They are designed to compete in the opposition space; not the governing space. They trade as a perpetual parking spot for negative, bitter, angry people, who wallow in vengeance year after year. They get the lazy, dumb vote.

    Other political parties throughout the western world have evolved to thrive. Federally we had PC, Reform, Alliance, Conservatives. Provincially, there was Social Credit, Liberal, and soon, a new branding. These are fast, effective evolutions.

    But the NDP have refused to re-invent. They have been calling themselves “New” for over half a century. New Dinosaur. They are older than Social Credit! But, change has a cost. In BC, in 1972, the NDP got in for 36 months during a changeover from Bennett father to son. In 1991, the NDP got in again, when Vander Zalm’s Social Credit morphed into the new Liberals under Gordon Wilson, then further with Gordon Campbell.

    Then, after ruling for a (lost) decade, the NDP utterly failed in consolidating power, and were nearly extincted by BC citizens in 2001; we reduced them to 2 token seats. That was their once in a century opportunity to evolve, but, they just redecorated themselves with early 70s. Bizarre.

    The internal force is that there no incentive for existing NDP MLAs to change. Once elected in opposition, they get gifted by their supporters the highest paying (and pensioning) jobs they’ll ever have, and they won’t let go. They have the easiest jobs in the legislature because they don’t have the pressures and publicity of governing a $46billion province. So, despite claiming to be modern and progressive, they refuse to go through a few years of losses to create a viable, ruling party in BC, and remain perpetually peripheral. They just keep returning to their natural position as a bitching, negative gang, and change leaders like diapers.

    The real problem is that NDP supporters are lazy and don’t demand on re-invention. When they do, they get attacked by their own like a psycho-pathic shop steward. Sean, change-makers like you could make a difference – look at the Bernie movement that came out of nowhere – but the BC Liberals will govern longer than you can keep hating.

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