A no messing around guide to the coolest things to eat, drink and do in Vancouver and beyond. Community. Not clickbait.

On Pitching Tents in Shaughnessy and Career Politicians Wanting Unlimited Rent Increases

Tea & Two Slices is a long-running local news round-up by NEEDS frontman and veteran dishwasher Sean Orr, who lives and works in Gastown, deeply aware of his privilege.

No funds city: This is how much money you need to make to live alone in Vancouver in 2019. “Might want to hold off on that extra guac while you read this…” Ah yes, isn’t precarity adorable? And to anyone scrutinizing this list scoffing at $120 for partying keep in mind, we shouldn’t have to suffer in misery just because half our income goes to a scumbag landlord who does nothing but collect cheques.

Speaking of landlords: How Poor Americans Get Exploited by Their Landlords. “Landlords in poor neighborhoods derive a median profit of $298 monthly, compared with $225 in middle-class neighborhoods and $250 in affluent ones”.

Remember folks, it’s expensive to be poor.

Here’s a meme about it:

The BC Liberals are wildly campaigning from a Rent is Too Damn Low position:

Ah yes, out of touch guy is still amazingly out of touch:

Like, even if this wasn’t totally made up, your government was wholly responsible for this very thing you are complaining about.

Late capitalist dystopian hellworld of the day: B.C. business helps people rent their properties as campsites. I know this is because BC Parks is a free for all, but I just imagine all the sprawling backyards of Shaughnessy filled with the tents of people who can’t afford rent.

I’m sure this is what Maple Ridge had in mind with its housing plan: Province to move ahead with Maple Ridge supportive housing without city’s support. This is great, but wait…the province had the power to do this the entire time? Wow…fuck the Liberals even harder.

Meanwhile, the federal government just decided to throw gas on the real estate dumpster fire: The Canadian Government Launches Predatory First-Time Buyer Mortgage Scheme. We’ve learned nothing.

I didn’t make all my money smuggling fentanyl and laundering the proceeds at local casinos to live above a legal pot shop: Yaletown condo dwellers worry illegal pot shop will be allowed to open legally in their tower. Just get your kid to sell Girl Guide cookies out front…

Speaking of fentanyl, the dream of the 1890s is alive in…Canada: From Colombia to Lebanon to Toronto: How a DEA probe uncovered Hezbollah’s Canadian money laundering ops

The U.S. source believes the RCMP missed an early opportunity to fight the incursion of sophisticated professional money laundering networks with ties to China, the Middle East, Colombia and Mexico that are now plaguing Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal.

We are a joke. We are a colonial-era hitching post. A boreal backwater. We are Paul Gross and his wolf dog looking all cute and saying “eh” a lot and jumping off waterfalls while Colombian drug lords are doing deals with Hezbollah behind our backs and laundering the money through Vancouver real estate while groups like Abundant Housing Vancouver assure us we just need to build more houses. Eh.

I mean, we can’t even sell our fucking grain. It’s like we’re on the Oregon Trail and we spent all our money at Matt’s General Store and have nothing to leverage anymore: China stops buying Canadian canola. Nicholas Ellan:

This is a disaster. If we are going to side with Trump on his trade war with China and help the Five Eyes blackball Huawei, you’d figure they’d drop the steel and aluminum tariffs at least. We don’t have a lot of political capital to work with, though. Saudi Arabia showed us our relative position back in August with their unnecessarily brutal overreaction to one tweet of criticism. We are everybody’s bitch these days. So much for “Canada’s back.”

The world is laughing at us as we bicker over a chocolate bar: Jimmy Kimmel makes fun of Canadian politics on talk show. And our defence minister retweeted this. He’s laughing at this exchange while we’re mired in scandal. Arrogance? Hubris? Never mind, it’s all about…wait for it…

Jobs. And it seems only students are asking Trudeau why he mentioned jobs when SNC Lavalin did not:

Bonus: Broadcaster who held onto his language through residential school to call NHL game in Cree.

There is 1 comment

  1. Yeah landlords. Just horrible. An out-dated concept. People should just walk away and extinct them out of business. You don’t need to rent, just go rentless. Go find other places to live.

On Ken Sim’s So-Called “Swagger” and ABC’S Class War

Sean Orr is back from his hiatus with a rundown of the local headlines that have been running on a ticker tape through his mind over the past six months...

On Post-Election Recuperation, Platform Paradoxes and Refund Communities

In his latest read of the local news headlines, Sean Orr finds irony in "safety, affordability, and sustainability", and shouts out a bunch of amazing local organizations working on the frontlines.

On Running for City Council, Playing Whack-a-Mole with Homelessness, and the Public Washroom Deficit

In his latest read of the local news headlines, Sean Orr finds a park ranger with a grudge, a gross misuse of air quotes and Tripadvisor slander.

On Living in a City Preoccupied with Street Cleaning, Chandeliers, and Campaigns Against the Homeless

In his latest read of the local news headlines, Sean Orr hones in on the recent Langley shootings, and the ongoing criminalizing and dehumanizing of the homeless population.