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.

We’ve got shitty monoliths popping up in Vancouver because we suck at being original and just badly copy everyone else. We’ve got a shitty pro-life anthem singer singing at a shitty anti-mask rally which he then got fired for by our team owners who are also shitty developers and blueberry farmers and the shittiest Canadian is mad about it. We’ve got shitty drivers, shitty food prices, shitty restaurant customers, and a shitty federal government building a shitty pipeline, embarrassing itself on Venezuela and asking people to pay back CERB. I just hope the new game Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t shitty. (Narrator: it is).

But hey, it isn’t all bad. At least we get to see the VPD get denied their request of $5.7 million. Of course, it should have been slashed as per Jean Swanson’s motion but, hey, the Greens are a gonna Green and the NPA’s gonna slide into full basement dwelling neckbeard territory.

Because there are unelected sullen teenagers on the police board (who actively hid racism within their ranks), they’ll probably completely ignore this. Just like they refused to accept a 1% cut earlier, and just like they refused to stop criminalizing poverty by creating a dedicated anti-poor unit.

Meanwhile, the New Westminster Police “Union” is threatening to allow drug users to die in retaliation for receiving a funding freeze:

What could possibly be the problem? Police forces across Canada are still overwhelmingly white and male, new report shows. This is news.

Hey, maybe you wouldn’t need to hire so many police officers if they didn’t keep doing shitty things: Eight B.C. police officers ordered dismissed in one year. One bad apple spoils the whole bunch.

In other council news: Vancouver Takes Over the Notorious Regent and Balmoral SROs. I hope we gave the Slumlord Sahotas one dollar for each, but we’ll never know because for some reason the City made a deal with them to not tell us how much of our fucking money we gave them.

Imagine how much shit we could get done if we just, you know, did stuff: Impatient with Red Tape, Vancouver Builder Makes a Tiny Home Prototype. Just one problem: land.

Speaking of red tape: BC’s New Addictions Minister Promises Action on Safe Supply, Overdose Prevention. “It’s been four months since the B.C. government announced funding for 17 new supervised injection sites and 12 new sites for inhaling substances. None are yet in place.” Maybe we should have declared it a public health emergency four years ago.

Good thing we elected a progressive government to take care of the most vulnerable in our society: B.C.’s COVID-19 income and disability assistance top-up will soon be cut in half. Remember when the BC Liberals cancelled the disability bus pass? Yeah, me neither.

Details released on how to apply for B.C.’s COVID-19 recovery benefit. Ok, on one hand give me $500 daddy Horgan so I can buy half a textbook, but on the other, getting bribed with your own money is fucking weird and why are you means testing it based on 2019 incomes as though people didn’t lose their jobs in 2020 due to a fucking global pandemic?

Nice….

A real quote from our new Minister of Finance on how some people might use their actual pandemic recovery benefit money which, for some, might be a whopping $10. She suggested they might get “a $5 latte.”

— Karin Kirkpatrick (@KirkpatrickWVC) December 10, 2020

The good news? Rents went down. The bad news? One-bedroom apartments in Vancouver now average a staggering $1,980, report finds. Burnaby 3rd, Victoria 4th. Everything is fine. This is totally fine.

Foreign ownership registry a game changer in B.C. say real estate insiders. I don’t trust anything real estate insiders say and I don’t trust news that hides behind a paywall.

But wait, apparently Jon Stovell is against it, which means that I am now totally for it:

Let’s get right on with discouraging investment in our economy. Then we can happily fund all the growth with local taxation and reduction in services (ie police). City of Van development revenues have gone from over 700 mil in 2018 to well under 100 mil for 2020.

— Jon Stovell (@JonStovell) December 10, 2020

First, threatening us with defunding the police is like threatening your kid with a PS5. Second, arguing that a BC foreign ownership registry is bad is a tacit admission of development revenue hinging on keeping foreign ownership secret. Thanks, Jon.

How to kill a city in three simple steps: Douglas Todd: The hollowing out of Vancouver’s west side.

Remember, don’t blame culture, blame capitalism: Don’t blame ‘culture’ for COVID-19 rates in South Asian communities. “Blaming disproportionate COVID19 rates in racialized communities on ‘culture’ ignores how many are segregated in service and gig jobs that are so badly paid they’ve no choice but to live crowded when they get home, too.”

Speaking of the gig economy: BC MLA introduces bill to cap fees charged to restaurants by delivery services. Now do Airbnb!

Wet’suwet’en Women Urge Dr. Bonnie Henry to Shut Down Industrial Camps Amid Covid Outbreaks. “Making a conscious decision to bring transient workers into our territories & communities is telling us that the economic gain of the province or state is more important than our language and cultures… more important than our lives”

Cars kill: Scientists solve mystery of mass coho salmon deaths. The killer? A chemical from car tires.

New whale, who dis: New whale species discovered off Mexico. This discovery was a total fluke.

2020 going out with a bang: B.C. Hydro prepares for strong geomagnetic storm.

Bonus: Everything You Already Forgot About 2020. Aaaand they forgot about the Australian wild fires…