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.

I had to take a mental health day yesterday after the Vancouver police budget hearing, listening to the heartbreaking personal stories and testimony of countless advocates on one hand and the disgusting anti-homeless NIMBY rhetoric on the other. It wasn’t personal. It wasn’t because I’ve been red-lined myself (a white cis-het male) for picking a can out of a VCC garbage can; or because I got challenged to a fight by a VPD officer walking home for work with an uncracked beer in my hand; or because they let Gord the Harmonica Man stumble away into the freezing cold night with cracked ribs and a severe concussion after being jumped by two coked-up rich kids; or because they told the hospital I was on drugs when I wasn’t when I was having a manic episode. It’s not even because they killed my partner’s best friend and have so far gotten away with it.

No, it’s the sheer disdain they have for the community and the democratic process that is supposed to sustain it. It’s because of the sheer arrogance and tone-deafness of it all. Listening to our own police force belittle the impassioned and unprecedented community upswell as a cut and paste national letter-writing campaign that borrows from the US or some socialist bogeyman; listening to them pivot away from statistics by saying their funding request is now based on feelings while simultaneously ignoring 80+ community organizations that asked them to stop doing street checks; listening to them say they hand out sleeping bags (as if there wasn’t some way “people without firearms, bullet proof vests, and hundreds of years of systemic racism could hand out sleeping bags“); and listening to them say they only spend $283 on policing poverty with a straight face while asking for 6.4 million fucking dollars to *cough* “keep the lights on”.

The VPD budget is almost $900,000/day. That’s $600 a minute. In the last 10 years it’s gone from $325 per citizen to around $490 per citizen. Do you feel safer? The VPD has tanks, drones, and massive surveillance power, yet ask them for transparency and they turn into a bunch of whiny babies. Let them talk about decriminalization all they want. We know it won’t stop them harassing poor people: How Police Drug Seizures Are Making Life Worse on the Downtown Eastside.

Vancouver Police Department Chief Adam Palmer has said — repeatedly — that the department does not arrest anyone for simple possession of drugs. Palmer has urged other Canadian police chiefs to lobby for the decriminalization of drug possession.

But Downtown Eastside residents and advocates say that’s not true. Despite Palmer’s public stance, the reality on the ground is that while police officers may not arrest people for drug possession, they frequently stop them and confiscate small amounts of drugs, often without charging them with any crime.

Which leaves people with hard choices — buy more drugs in the midst of withdrawal? Commit crimes to find money to replace the drugs taken by police?

Exactly. It’s not fucking rocket science that if you fund communities, fund social housing, fund disability, fund mental health that you will need less policing. And yet, this is where we are at: Police watchdog investigates after man dies in altercation with officers at Vancouver coffee shop. Over and over and over again they have proven that they are unable to de-escalate tense situations. We need an alternative to calling cops when people are using bathrooms in coffee shops and staff want to close down for the night. We need answers. We need justice.

And yet, for every Angela Sterritt and Jen St. Denis asking the hard questions there’s a Daphne Bramham resorting to worn-out moral platitudes and sensational pearl-clutching: Chaos and depravity so normalized in DTES that there is no humanity left. If there’s no humanity left it’s because your paper has been advocating for blowing up the DTES for the last 40 years – simping for developers and whitewashing gentrification, endorsing the murderous austerity of the BC Liberals, stanning over “social mix” and and challenging at every turn the tireless work of advocates on the ground, imperfect though they may sometimes be.

Yes, it’s chaotic, but at the expense of unparalleled wealth at the other end of the spectrum that this newspaper boosts at every opportunity, glossing over the imbalance with out-of-context reporting. Without looking at the big picture this is nothing short of poverty tourism, a haughty takedown of the slums. Without noting that poverty activists have been calling for a ‘housing first’ approach and that it costs more for every homeless person on the street, this is just reactionary clickbait.

I mean, just look at the language here: Vancouver police warn of tainted drugs after seven party people taken to hospital. Good to know that it’s ‘party people’ when it’s in a condo in the West End, but ‘addicts’ when it’s in the DTES. Today is the 1,694th day of the overdose emergency and we still don’t fucking get it. Safe supply now.

Books not cops: Vancouver budget: Library board seeks $625,000 to eliminate overdue fines. bUt hOw wIlL wE paY fOr iT?

Chantel Moore’s family calls for changes to justice system after her brother dies by suicide. I don’t want to colonize this mother’s anger. I don’t want to say something about structural violence or some other sophomoric bullshit. I just want justice.

Arrest of Nunavut man knocked down by police truck door lawful: investigation. Yup, totally fine. The cops looked into it. Nothing to see here. There’s no racism in Canada.

B.C. homework assignment asks for ‘positive experiences with residential schools’. Imagine if South African students were asked to do a school assignment on the benefits of apartheid? This isn’t a mistake. This is the colonial project at work.

To wit: B.C. argues Nuchatlaht Nation ‘abandoned’ its territory. Lawyer reminds court ‘land was stolen’. ‘Reconciliation is not just words’ – John Horgan, proving that reconciliation is in fact, just words. How can a province that enshrined into law the United Nations Declaration on Indigenous Peoples argue, on behalf of a logging company, in the face of smallpox, the fur trade and residential schools, that the Nuchatlaht abandoned their land. Tell the government to do the right thing here.

Prominent Global News Host Quits Alleging On-Air Climate Increased Racist Threats. This is for all the “sunlight makes the best disinfectant” naivety that people throw my way. It doesn’t. It makes things grow:

Dwivedi handed in her resignation in October, six weeks after a listener sent her a message that referenced her one-year-old daughter being raped. “Instead of all the hating on white men you pompous little cunt maybe you should be protecting your daughter against BLM thugs who will eventually rape your daughter,” the message said.

Seriously, I should be totally shocked by the above quote but I’m not. I read the comments on the Province Facebook page, like the ones about Eliot Page or this one on the following article, and I wouldn’t put anything past these people: Widespread systemic racism in B.C.’s health care system: report.

What the hell is going on? Unusable masks, catered meals, redone renos: B.C. health minister orders review of PHSA spending. My friend Grant Mercs with the wisdom: “These MBA fuckers in management treat government cash as their own slush fund while squeezing the day to day workers dry.”

No, This Second Wave Wasn’t Caused By Young Adults. But it’s just so much easier than actually blaming the death cult of late capitalism.

Pay people to stay home. Stop evictions. Cancel rents. Cancel mortgages. Cancel debt. Stop bailing out billionaires. Tax the rich. And shut this the fuck down now: Two Chilliwack churches continue in-person services despite public health orders.

But if this is where our most progressive politicians stand, we’re doomed, epic Twitch sessions with AOC be damned:

Then there’s Horgan: B.C.’s ‘nerd’ premier gives Vulcan salute during swearing-in ceremony. Live long and prosper? More like “barely survive and scrape by”, am I right?

This should tell you everything you need to know about the kulaks that run this province: NIMBY or Not? NDP President Opposes Affordable Housing near Island Property. No public official should be able to run an Airbnb, right Councillor Hardwick?

Cool, cool, cool: Mainstreet Equity launching B.C. buying blitz

Good news of the week: Vancouver raising empty homes tax to 3% in 2021.

Hundreds join rally from Surrey to Vancouver to support farmer protest in India. I’ve never seen so many Dodge Vipers and Hummers mobilize in support of workers!

Welcome to the revolution: Orcas Ram Yacht For 2 Hours In Unexplained String Of Attacks. Class Warca? Sorry.

Satire of the day: Struggling single mother awarded grant to continue pursuing her fledgling music career.

2020 doom bingo of the day: Dead minks infected with a mutated form of COVID-19 rise from graves after mass culling.

And finally, this one is close to my heart: Strathcona community rallies for Annie the bottle lady.