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.

Pass the popcorn: NPA civil war breaks out into the open as three councillors bolt from caucus to sit as independents. I guess the NPA now stands for Not a Party Anymore (thanks to Lisa Kreut for that one).

Why did it take so long? They knew their board was hijacked by far-right mouth-breathers and they knew they’d refused to hold an AGM. Will they join Ken Sim‘s new party or sit as independents? Is this really just a long drawn out and very headline grabbing nomination process where the most viable candidate to replace K-Stew on the centre-right will emerge from the smouldering rubble, as Frances Bula theorizes? Why did Melissa De Genova not follow the lead of her fellow cop wife? Wait, I know the answer to that one. She’s doubling down on her far-right fanbase and will emerge as the Make Vancouver Great Again candidate.

Meanwhile:

She’ll still interrupt the caucus meeting with points of order though…

— Zupa Grochowa (@Grochowa2) April 22, 2021

Here she is agreeing with Vancouver Police “union” prez that the highest per-capita funded police force in North America, whose overtime tripled last year, who take millions in donations from Peter Wall, who violently arrest peaceful Indigenous youth land defenders while babysitting anti-maskers, doesn’t have the resources to break up a beach party during a pandemic.

Maybe the resources you’re actually lacking are ethical, not financial.

Are these really the people you want doing random street checks for people travelling across health boundaries? Cops don’t kill viruses. Paid sick days do. And no, Mr. Horgan, giving someone a few hours off to get a vaccine is not what we were fucking talking about: Lack of Paid Sick Leave in BC’s Budget Is a ‘Missed Opportunity’. “We will continue to pursue all avenues possible to make sure the workers don’t have to go to work when they’re sick.” Except, you know, that avenue.

You know else kills a pandemic? Eviction Bans Reduced Viral Transmission. And Other Science Journal Findings. No, instead this party of landlords whose leader “doesn’t see colour” is ensuring BIPOCs won’t be targeted by random checks.

What else is in the budget? Free transit for kids under 12 included in B.C. Budget 2021. Excellent. Just one problem…

Let’s see, how else can we totally misread the room? I know! A subsidy for developers! B.C. puts $2B toward low-interest loans for builders of affordable housing. With zero vacancy control these units geared towards households making 75k a year will evaporate into thin air.

Here’s how to actually do it: How to build affordable rental housing in Vancouver. TL:DR is that the market will never be able to or desire to build affordable housing. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

This too: Once a Symbol of Gentrification, Burns Block Will House Homeless Women. Still though, this scumbag kicked everyone on the street, turned an SRO into “micro-suites”, complained ad nauseum about the people he kicked out into the street blocking the entrance, and then turns around and sells it back to the province for a sum. What a racket.

Hey, maybe the province will buy this shit-hole: Starchitect Designed Vancouver House Floods Itself: Should Radical Design Be Rethought? Oh baby, just you wait when the Big One hits and all the shiny green glass rains down upon the citizens below.

That high, eh? Maclean’s ranks Vancouver as Canada’s 174th best community. I’d love to gloat but if you actually click through it’s “the best communities in Canada to live and work remotely” and I assume we are ranked so low because most of our jobs are either service sector jobs that you can’t work remotely at or just sitting on property and waiting for it to skyrocket.

This is crazy. Airbnb made a fucking dossier of housing advocates’ social media posts and gave it to the city. They only found out because they FOIed themselves. This city is literally shaking hands with the fucking devil:

I have obtained evidence showing @Airbnb monitoring housing advocates in Vancouver including @mortimer_1, @brettdrc, @jonesj and me.

Airbnb then made a dossier of our social media posts and sent it to @CityofVancouver. Here’s one page from the dossier.#vanre #vanpoli pic.twitter.com/TWSZqxZklq

— Rohana Rezel (@rohanarezel) April 21, 2021

Literally no one except Bob Kronbauer: It’s almost time to shoot the Stanley Park coyotes.

Stanley Park businesses send bike lane dispute to BC Supreme Court. Imagine what we could be doing with all this time and resources. Instead these selfish pricks who apparently can’t wrap their heads around the fact that they lost money because there’s no fucking tourists. Seriously, show me one local who goes to these over priced concession stands/wedding photo ops.

Like, imagine if we took that money and re-trained all the out of work musicians and servers to crunch some numbers: B.C. government’s withholding of COVID-19 data sows harmful distrust. I hate to agree with Kirk Lapointe but here we are.

“Someone should do something”: For One Day, BC Activists Handed Out Clean Heroin and Cocaine. Keeping drug users alive? What a concept.

Related: The flying 248 Squad.

Victoria of the day: Explosion of taggers putting up ‘gross’ graffiti around Victoria. “There’s really no meaning behind the word, it’s just something we both thought was funny,” the creators behind the ‘Big Texas Cummer’ tag”.