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.

You don’t win friends with salad: Mike Smyth: It’s B.C. Premier Horgan versus everybody else as other provinces turn right. “John Horgan suddenly seems like the only vegan at a barbecue festival, as Canada’s other provinces elect a long list of red-meat conservatives as their premiers…” I’ve never wanted to become a vegan more badly in my life.

Liberals say NDP to blame for price at the pumps in B.C.; Watchdog says that’s not the case. “Simms says while taxpayers are frustrated, they’re not dumb”. Uh, are you sure about that? Because I’m pretty sure Wilkinson knows what he’s doing. He knows his party implemented the Translink and Carbon Tax and he doesn’t care because taxpayers are dumb.

What if it’s all a big hoax and we create a better city for nothing? City of Vancouver to consider six ‘big moves’ in response to climate emergency. I took the liberty of looking up where all the commenters on the Facebook post were from and almost none of them actually live in Vancouver. Like, why does “Kevin from Lloydminster” think this Vancouver initiative will make his taxes go up?

Then again, the knuckle draggers will turn anything into a tax issue, like, you know, literally making our residential streets safer for everyone: 30 km/h on neighbourhood streets in Vancouver? City councillor calls for a pilot project testing the idea. Never mind that most of them don’t know the difference between local streets and arterials (or the guy calling the Green Party fascists), Rob Hebner seems to think this is a “plot to get more public funding via traffic and speeding tickets while the BC Minister of Finance continues to withdraw funds from ICBC while BC drivers pay more via his hidden tax system…” That’s like a solid 9.5 in the mental gymnastics olympics.

‘A little wear and tear’: 420 organizer says damage to Sunset Beach minimal as cleanup begins. 60,000 thousand people and only “a little wear and tear”? Imagine 60,000 drunk suburbanites at a booze fest. It would make Stab Night and the 2011 riots look like kindergarten.

‘Just get them baked’: Michael Bublé on getting B.C. on board with pipeline plan. The fact that most cannabis users are also stridently anti-pipeline aside, this ball of smarm’s manager (Bruce Allen) once called homeless people “the flotsam and jetsam of humanity”. That should tell you enough about the guy.

Besides, it just feeds into this caricature of pot users as lazy, chip-eating buffoons: Canada Has Made Pot Super Boring. Gen X is cancelled: “When you used to pass around a joint, you were sharing a little naughtiness, a tiny collective experience of rebellion. Now, at a party, when you a pass around a joint, you’re basically saying let’s go stare at things for a while. When I see cops on the street today, there is nothing I do that might upset them”. Ladies and gentlemen, behold the whitest comment you will read today!

But what do you expect from the New Yorker? Why do Americans always get us so fucking wrong? Trudeau to be portrayed on Canadian-themed episode of The Simpsons. Want to bet it portrays us as polite, donut-eating Mounties and ignores our terrible environmental crimes and long history of genocide?

…‘Canadians would be shocked’: Survivors describe treatment at Nanaimo Indian Hospital.

More colonial white-washing: Canada is releasing a coin commemorating a myth: that homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969. “Not only did charges for gross indecency continue after 1969, they escalated.” Why is it that when we legalize something we actually criminalize it?

Palate cleanser: 39 hilarious messages on the Penthouse Night Club’s legendary marquee.

Bonus: Swimsuit-clad performers turn Vancouver sidewalk into beach.