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.

Say it in your Super Mario voice: “Here we go”! ‘Done with asking nicely’: B.C. announces public inquiry into money laundering. Derrick O’Keefe:

Don’t forget all the politicians who for years said “nothing to see here folks, please move along.” This call for a full public inquiry is overdue and very welcome.

Good move by Premier Horgan and the B.C. govt. Bad day for Rich Coleman and Christy Clark. And Vision Vancouver founder Larry Campbell

Indeed. It could also come back to bite Horgan in the ass. Stuart Parker explains:

John Horgan spent from 2001 to 2005 as a lobbyist for the casino industry and Geoff Meggs served as Larry Campbell’s chief of staff and primary advocate for casino development in Vancouver. Campbell, Meggs and Horgan worked together to promote a casino for which Campbell was rewarded with a seat on the board of the biggest money laundering firm in the province.

Nicole Joliet goes even farther:

We could solve the dirty money problem by working with China, since the PRC also considers it dirty money that belongs to the Chinese people. The reason why we don’t is itself pure colonialism: ytpipo don’t want to give that money back to the Chinese people, because we collectively believe that we’re *entitled* to that wealth and that China “stole” it from us somehow, ignoring the fact that we spent the 19th century getting the Chinese people addicted to opium so we could rob them blind in the first place…

Or maybe we don’t actually want to stop it: Canada Would Be In A Recession Without Money Laundering. Wow. What does this say about your economy? This should also go far to quell a lot of the sinophobia that accompanies stories about money laundering because we clearly set up all the conditions necessary to benefit from it.

I’m sure we’d have a public inquiry into the opioid crisis if we could conveniently pin it on a previous government. But we can’t because we clearly don’t care about actual lives: Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth won’t act on B.C. health officer’s evidence-based plan to save drug users’ lives. Seriously, when the stupid war on drugs is over, will it mean we can charge our politicians with war crimes?

Instead of criminalizing poverty, maybe we should reward the ingenuity of people who face it everyday: New certificate recognizes street smarts of harm reduction workers in Vancouver. Wow, I’m so proud of my big brother, and all the frontline peer support workers. Keep up the good fight!

But then there’s Maple Ridge. Sigh. This Maple Ridge resident put the Anita Place Tent City on Facebook as a house listing. Like, how can you call homeless people lazy on one hand and then mock their hard work and creativity on the other?

I guess the same way you can see two lesbians kissing and call the cops: Vacationing couple defend Okanagan park behaviour, say there was no sex on the beach. The “can I talk to the manager” haircut just seals the deal on this.

Metro Vancouver commuting experience heading downhill. Yeah, about that… Remember when everyone decided to punish Translink by voting to not give them a bigger operating budget?

Province to study North Shore-Vancouver rapid transit line. We should have tunnelled under Stanley Park back in 2000 when we had the chance.

Is there anything in this city that won’t eventually get Donnellized?

Bonus: Caught on camera: Electric SUV plunges into water at Port Moody boat launch.