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On Something Smelling Fishy and All These Damn Poor People Leeching Off the System

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.

This is the future neo-liberals want: Vancouver mall offers homeless a safe place to sleep. Don’t get me wrong, letting people sleep on commercial property should just be the bare minimum that we do, but how about we actually build some fucking homes?

And how about the private sector actually paying some fucking taxes? Canadian corporations may have avoided $25-billion or more in taxes in 2018. Remind me how poor people “leech off the system” again?

And please tell me how cracking down on $90 worth of fish and not $25 billion doesn’t completely reinforce the structural racism of settler colonialism? ‘Stop posing as scientists’ researchers plead after Sask. conservation officer’s fishing sting.

And please tell me that we can’t afford head-to-toe health care? Jagmeet Singh says if Canada can afford a 15b pipeline it can afford national pharmacare.

Vancouver is not always awesome: Here’s why we published (then took down) a piece about “BC NDP housing policies destroying wealth”.

“It’s sometimes hard to hear through the noise that is the internet and its culture of people complaining about everything and find actual fault in something you did. But in this case there was no noise; we did a bad thing.”

But why stop there? Why not also apologize for over a decade of blind-eyed boosterism as the city you aimed to celebrate went to pieces? Now that would be awesome.

 

 

Something something climate emergency: Mike Smyth: Pipeline reality check — bitumen is being shipped through B.C. already. This is literally the argument I use against the pipeline expansion.

WTF: B.C. CFS moves in to seize 90-minute-old baby on report of neglect.

Related: White man injured by use of word genocide.

Vancouver’s oldest bar ‘The Cambie’ is officially closing its doors. I mean, I don’t really like the place but it’s still a shame. I heard they tried to finally clean the beer lines but when they saw them were like, sell sell sell! Donnelly must chomping at the bit. Best comment: “A friend of mine was once over-served in this establishment”.

There are 6 comments

  1. decade of blind-eyed boosterism? Like Sean have you ever read what else Scout actually publishes?

  2. You mean like Bob Rennie profiles and features about cats and dogs? Ad hominem ad nauseum.

  3. No I don’t really read Scout but imagine TATS at least serves as a counterpoint to most of it and that was totally absent from VIA

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