by Sean Orr |  The BC Liberals released their budget last week and it’s as bad as you think. Well, maybe not US military funding bad, but raising MSP premiums when 70,000 people just signed a petition to end MSP premiums bad. And especially bad because the Premier herself says they aren’t fair!

It’s cutting $18 million from transit while building a $3.5 billion bridge so they can ship coal and LNG more easily bad. It’s announcing they are tracking foreign ownership but doing nothing to actually stop it bad. It’s lowballing the forest fire budget again bad. It’s creating a prosperity fund with money from LNG but instead funding it with money from British Columbians bad.

It’s cuts of $24 million to public school administration but an increase of $48M to private schools bad. It’s $15.5 billion for a dam that nobody wants bad. It’s a budget so bad that the man who tabled it actually said “I don’t think this makes life easier for people”.

It’s a budget so bad that even Gary Mason is upset about it: “What help was there for young people whose minimal, service-industry wages have stagnated while facing rent increases of 2 per cent to 4 per cent annually?”

It’s so bad that even anti-tax wanker Jordan Bateman makes sense. In examining De Jong’s decision to end MSP for children but raise them for families he says “Kids eat free, but we’ve jacked up adult meal prices for the 15th straight year. You’re welcome.”

But maybe the worst (and certainly the most insidious) facet is that in spite of finally unfreezing disability payments the government has announced that they’re now charging $700 a year for a bus pass that used to be $45. And the Premier has the nerve to say people on disability pensions are now “better off”.

On housing prices, DeJong says, inexplicably, that “there is more to B.C. than just Point Grey”. This snide, smug remark just demonstrates how completely out of touch the Liberals have become. It’s made worse by this asshole saying he can’t afford to live in Vancouver, and neither should you. Psst! The last time I checked, telling young people to leave is not a housing strategy. Clearly, they’ve picked their side.

Meanwhile, Airbnb listings outnumber available monthly rentals 10-1 in downtown Vancouver, stats show. Tie Airbnb permits to vacancy rates. If the vacancy rate is too low, no Airbnbs.

Meanwhile,  The New Yorker takes on Vancouver’s Ultra Rich Asian Girls: The Golden Generation. “Thom was alarmed that consumption has effectively replaced production as Vancouver’s growth industry. ‘The city has become a hotel’, he said”.

Related: Prada Reveals Vancouver Flagship Renderings and Details. Phew, be relieved they didn’t go Full Versace and invade Gastown.

Related: Impounded Maserati leads to VPD complaint. Because everyone knows that after Indigenous women, Maserati drivers are the most oppressed demographic in Canada:

The report said the officer offered to call a taxi for the driver. The driver refused the offer, gathered his belongings and moved his daughters onto the sidewalk, where he berated the police officer with profanities before walking away westbound while talking on his cellular phone before the tow truck arrived.

54-40 or fight! Vancouver skyline featured in Marco Rubio’s ‘Morning again in America’ campaign ad.

And Vogue magazine discovers we are more than just a pretty face: A Perfect Day in Vancouver, Just in Time for TED 2016. Pretty bang on but where is the part where you’re drinking tall boys at Beer Island before getting a buck-fitty Costco Dog then smoking bowls at Andy Livingstoned?

Alternatively, heading to Crab Park to observe the unlikely coexistence of Gastown moms and DTES addicts: CRAB Park could pay a heavy price if Port Metro Vancouver gets its way. Won’t someone think of the small dogs!?

Sports of the Day (related to all of the above): Botchford: Why the Canucks keep losing on home ice. “The consensus among key staffers who have since been let go is that the more ownership got involved, the more watered down, cold and corporate the game experience became…”