by Sean Orr | I literally can’t even fathom being able to afford this: Average Vancouver rental price for 1-bedroom apartment is $1,950, according to PadMapper.

But wait! All of a sudden Christy Clark cares! B.C. Liberals to promise major policy changes in upcoming throne speech. “For sure, it’s about getting votes, but it’s about connecting with people,’ says MLA Sam Sullivan”. For sure we totally flip-flopped to get votes in the snap election we are going to try and force after we throw in a bunch of goodies that we’ve neglected for a decade in order to make the Green-NDP alliance look bad for voting it down while we give ourselves a $100,000/yr raise and rake in more and more corporate donations while promising to ban corporate donations as we stopped real-time disclosure of said political donations but we really just want to “connect” with people. Our premier even degraded herself by taking public transit! It’s all about the people.

Wow, an increase of $100 to monthly welfare payments after a decade+ freeze. I guess binners get to take Tuesday mornings off now. #bcpoli

— Devon Rowcliffe (@DevonRowcliffe) June 20, 2017

The Truth Podium having a little trouble keeping up with the latest position of the BC Liberals on campaign finance reform #BCpoli #BCelxn17 pic.twitter.com/SVCTJEmZJ9

— The Truth Podium (@TruthPodium) June 19, 2017

Hopefully people will see through this garish attempt to pander to the masses: B.C. wants Christy Clark to accept defeat, new poll suggests. Even 32% of people who voted for her want her to resign. Wow.

We see you, Justin! Justin Trudeau deploys the politics of hype. Jeremy Corbyn offers politics of hope.

Now that Corbyn has upended the rules that govern electoral life in the west, it will help us see Trudeau in proper perspective: as a smooth-talking centrist who has put the most coiffed gloss yet on the bankrupt and besieged neoliberalism of the age.

“False media, we don’t need it do we? Don’t believe the hype!” — Public Enemy

Don’t believe it, indeed: Canada’s Middle Class Is on the Brink of Ruin. Yes, blame the middle class for eating the lies they’ve been fed by late-capitalism for decades – that they could ‘have it all’ – and not the banks acting like street level drug dealers doling out credit.

The middle class clearly needs to have a session with this life coach who doesn’t understand why people were upset about that article about buying a 1.2 million dollar crackhouse in Toronto and being forced to kick out poor people while they lived in their downtown condo: How my family came to be the most hated family in Toronto (at least for 24 hours). The most near-sighted, egotistical whinge from a privileged douchebag doubling down on a story which received, justly, widespread condemnation.

Evokes white settler struggle? Check.
Quotes Derrida from his Ivory Tower that he paid for with $100,000 inheritance. Check.
Troubled teen who took acid and chilled in Thailand? Check.
Throws wife under bus? Check.

Neoliberalism is the rich pretending they aren’t rich while the middle class think they are: Stop Pretending You’re Not Rich.

The American myth of meritocracy allows them to attribute their position to their brilliance and diligence, rather than to luck or a rigged system. At least posh people in England have the decency to feel guilty.

It’s this myth of meritocracy that actually trickles down to the middle class, not the free-market, and it explains the rise of the neo-reactionary thinking that has led to a flood of xenophobia in our cities: Down with people: How cultural elitism went mainstream.

In order for people to be able to say they are unique, they have to have a sense of themselves being unlike the undifferentiated masses. It’s a fusion of those patterns in consumer culture, more individualized consumption, counter-culture and this kind of aristocratic distinction – they’ve all sort of fused to create a popular culture in which everyone thinks they’re completely unique, and measures their values in opposition to everyone else.

Meanwhile, East Van organization hopes East Hastings could be Vancouver’s most walkable street. Wherein “walkable” is now a synonym for gentrification. Paraphrase, courtesy of David Cross: ‘It stays white out later on Hastings than it ever did before…’

But austerity isn’t just some thing that makes the white middle class act like entitled reactionaries, or makes a tone-deaf life coach from Toronto write a thousand word essay on how hard his life is, or calls for Hastings to be more ‘walkable’, it’s about saving a few dollars on fireproofing that results in over 100 people dead: From Grenfell to Balmoral: The case for public housing:

The Grenfell fire is a tragic reminder that in too many cases of badly neglected low income and public housing —it’s not a matter of if, but of when— the building will become a risk to life and security of person. As groups like DTES SRO Collaborative have been warning, the Balmoral is not especially unique among the coterie of privately-owned, decrepit and unsafe SRO buildings. The policy-driven drift toward further privatization of public housing in BC should be cause for concern.

Related: ‘Not having housing is life-threatening’: Activist takes the stage at Vancouver forum on future of housing

Related x2: Vancouver Housing Crisis ‘Worse on Virtually Every Level,’ Says Former UN Investigator. Rent control. What a concept. Nicole Joliet:

I do not understand why developers deserve endless leeway and support while poor people must live or die at the whims of “market forces”. Simply do not. We don’t have a problem of affordable housing stock restricted by zoning. We have a problem of -depleting- affordable housing stock by redefining “affordable housing” into something entirely meaningless in order to defang zoning that protects affordable housing. This won’t magically change if we start bulldozing empty single family homes in the West End rather than existing SROs.

Boomers gone wild: Man ‘high on crystal meth’ causes SkyTrain delays, damage. Dad, you are so embarrassing!

Onterrible of the day: Video shows woman demand a ‘white doctor’ treat son at Mississauga, Ont., clinic.

Headline of the day: Gangs of aggressive killer whales are shaking down Alaska fishing boats for their fish: report.

Bonus: The end will be delivered by Amazon drone.