Michelle Cyca
@michellecyca
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my parents bought their house in 1976 for $58,000. in 2022 dollars, that would be $279,160. their 2022 assessment valued the house at $2.09 million. i don't think getting married at 34 instead of 24 is the reason my generation can't buy homes. thanks for coming to my ted talk.
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I do not want to encourage my daughter to fixate on her appearance, but I do love when she dresses herself in the most chaotic outfit (strawberry dress, purple tutu, seagull leggings, bunny socks under rainbow sandals), then looks in the mirror and whispers “I look perfect.”.
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the backlash against Chappell Roan for saying “fine, I’ll vote for the Democratic Party, but I don’t like them” is so bizarre as a Canadian because it’s understood here that everyone votes begrudgingly for whomever they hate least in order to defeat someone worse.
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shout out to the man who catcalled me from his truck as he drove up from behind and then caught a side view and yelled “oh my god, I’m sorry!” as he sped past. making the most of this fleeting opportunity to dress like a jump scare for sexual harassers.
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what's the worst land acknowledgement you've ever seen? i don't know that anything will ever top this:
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very tiresome when people co-opt the language of social justice ("bike lanes are ablest," "being anti-fast fashion is classist") to defend their preferences, as if all of their personal behaviours and habits are actually political acts of solidarity.
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happy for the cbc editor who finally got to deploy this reference after waiting 26 years
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someone posted about how dads in her son’s class offloaded domestic labour to their wives without thinking about it, and guys are defending it with everything from “men can’t read” to “men have no memories” to “it could lead to an affair.” incredible!!!
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god himself could not make a violin so tiny.
Just over 80% of new condo investors in Toronto are losing money on their rentals
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just another day thinking about my all-time favourite Demented Depiction of Journalism in a Romantic Comedy— which is a very crowded field, folks
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my personal theory for why it's impossible for hollywood to make a plausible period piece for TV/film in 2023 is cosmetic dentistry. these fake teeth simply did not exist in the 70s.
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actually, my mom is the one who bought the house. and we never went camping.
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@jillreports @CityofVancouver personally I think if someone cannot avoid driving over (!?!) a bright-yellow concrete barricade than perhaps they should not be trusted to safely navigate the road at all.
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Becoming embarrassingly apparent than many people in this country have no idea what a protest is, and assume it should operate like a parade with a pre-approved route and permission from authorities.
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a lot of people replying to this to explain historical interest rates to me but one of the privileges of not owning a house myself is that i do not need (or want!) to understand them.
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woke up to a lot of replies from people who are learning about the deranged vancouver real estate market for the first time. i should explain that this is what a $2M house looks like here:
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in case it wasn’t clear, i don’t need bootstraps— i’m the beneficiary of intergenerational wealth, unequally distributed by the whims of an overinflated housing market!.
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lots of people reflexively denying that Alice Munro could have knowingly spent her life with the pedophile who abused her daughter, or rushing to say they never liked her writing — harder to accept the truth that people who make transcendent art are capable of monstrous acts.
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@karenpinchin there are definitely non-COVID viruses out there that cause terrible symptoms, but they're also not colds! feels like "it's a cold" has become a catch-all for "it's a virus that doesn't require me to take precautions around others".
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a truly disturbing number of replies from men who are like “i would never exchange an email with a woman who isn’t my wife” ???.
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Very fun when your kid develops their own fashion sense, though it’s painful that she is rejecting all the classic vintage denim jackets I thrifted for her… turfed for being “not rainbow”.
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Teens today don't appreciate how good they have it when it comes to skincare. In my day there were only four products: St Ive's apricot sandpaper scrub, Clearasil to burn your face off, The Body Shop tea tree oil, and that weird cucumber mask that peeled off like plastic wrap.
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british actors can still pull it off because they're more likely to keep their normal human teeth. this is why keira knightley is so perfect for period films.
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this is a very common attitude in Vancouver: many people seem to believe that the millions of dollars in wealth represented by their home does not make them, objectively speaking, wealthy.
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people replying to this to say “why doesn’t everyone move somewhere cheaper”… aside from the futility of proposing individual solutions to collective crises, consider what happens to affordable communities when there is a massive influx of new buyers from more expensive areas.
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Canada is on track to face its worst-ever year of wildfire destruction. Blazes are burning in nearly all Canadian provinces and territories, and federal government officials said their modeling shows increased wildfire risk in most of Canada through August
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if you own a $2m home, a “punishing” 9% property tax increase would be $485/year. if you rent an average 1-bedroom for $2,800, the 2% allowable rent for 2023 increase is $672/year.
As Vancouver seeks to avoid years of punishing property tax increases, councillors are now looking at fee hikes for everything from parking permits to business licences to the cost of owning a pet.
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I cannot believe how many variations of this situation are being offered as examples of economic hardship in my replies!!
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muting this before the replies inevitably get weird, but as a general rule if you are this sick, regardless of the precise viral nature of your illness, please stay home and rest!.
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this guy heard that Jordan Peterson was the most famous embarrassment associated with U of T and thought “I can do better”
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a humble repair person who owns multiple rental properties
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one of the most easily-disproven denial points is that "not a single body" has been found at residential schools. Cowessess First Nation, which found 751 unmarked graves at the Marieval residential school in 2021, has identified over 300 bodies:
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serious competition from the washington department of corrections, provided by @vogon. incredible stuff.
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asked my kid what she wanted to do over the long weekend and she said "go to the big library and then eat a croissant." a flawless itinerary.
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@klagowski the question assumes that bike lanes are an exhortation for everyone to ride a bike, which isn’t the case. it also suggests that car-centric transportation plans are inherently inclusive. in either case I’d say the term has little merit or meaning here.
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all credit for this stimulating sociological discussion to @sonyabonczek, please read the replies to her original tweet & enjoy losing your mind: .
Been running into dads of my 3yo’s classmates and asking for their emails for his birthday party and so far 3 out of 3 dads have proceeded to give me their wives’ emails instead. This is now a social experiment.
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this half-baked observation is reaching that unfortunate threshold of twitter visibility where soon people are going to get mad at me.
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"In Australia however, Queen Elizabeth II's imagery on their $5 banknote will be replaced with an Indigenous design to honour the culture and history of the First Australians.".
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temperatures are dropping to -16 tomorrow night. this is murderous.
This morning: Vancouver park rangers, with the assistance of police officers, removing people’s tents and belongings from Oppenheimer Park, where some homeless residents have been living for months. Story to come.
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For pro-choice folks in BC understandably horrified by what's happening in Texas, I think it's worth knowing that British Columbia has 35 "crisis pregnancy centres," anti-abortion orgs that masquerade as reproductive health clinics.
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can’t believe I have to clarify this but I’m not saying we should ignore the disabled community in planning or conversations about access! only that vulnerable or marginalized groups should not be thoughtlessly used as pawns to score moral points in arguments.
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genuinely very funny that our new mayor campaigned on "hiring 100 cops + 100 nurses on day one" only to say three days post-election that it was just an idea he had, he has no idea where to find those people, and that it's not his job to figure it out.
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this ad is insane, watch it now before they scrub it from the internet.
Pedestrian safety is a two-way street. What pedestrians and drivers can do to make our roadways safer
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listened to @Canadaland this morning & @jessebrown claimed that "no one has ever been inspired by Vancouver to write a great novel" so now I feel obligated to do a thread about great Vancouver novels:.
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the what
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@sammymarie getting flashback to the agonizing physical sensation of stepping on a small pebble, shielded only by a paper-thin sole.
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Canadians really embraced Orange Shirt Day because it offers them moral absolution for the low price of $20, the cost of a London Drugs t-shirt that they wear once a year. We have turned the traumatic legacy of residential schools into another retail holiday.
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a lot of good suggestions here to bedazzle the denim jacket! will see if that appeals to her. 💎.
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@klagowski you can use whatever term you want! i'm not going to put you in bad opinion jail. but it's okay to just say "i hate cyclists and bike lanes." you don't have to use a faulty moral position as a smokescreen.
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wild that there is a made-up condition that supposedly only affects people while they are being assaulted by police, which can be used to claim that the assault didn’t cause their death.
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In August 2019, my former employer @EmilyCarrU hired Gina Adams, an “Ojibwe-Lakota” artist, as part of a restricted search for Indigenous faculty. Then people started asking questions about her identity— including me. My first feature for @macleans:.
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Seeing a lot of “I support the right to protest but it shouldn’t affect anyone’s day!!!” type posts which make me want to crawl under a rock and die of secondhand humiliation.
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ok this one is also incredibly bad.
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this is such a direct, tangible example of reconciliation in practice that other Canadian universities could easily implement— here's hoping some of them do.
#UWaterloo is proud to announce that a full tuition waiver will be offered to all qualifying students from two First Nation communities on whose traditional territory the University is situated. More: | #UWaterlooNews
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by this logic, people with massive investment portfolios are also not really wealthy— the only true wealth is a Scrooge McDuck vault of gold coins deep enough to swim in. let's! be! serious!.
Kernel of truth here. Home equity is embodied in net worth, but it's illiquid wealth that can only be liberated thru selling one's home. The main "winners" in an inflated RE market are rentier intermediaries like banks, developers, & investors. Homeowners benefit, but far less.
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if you liked this tweet you are now obliged to visit your local library. this is what I'm picking up today from the @VPL if you need a suggestion:
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you make one little observation like “a $2m home is a pretty significant asset, actually” and thousands of posters emerge like a cicada brood, hollering “you want my sweet grandma to sell her home and live in a DRAUGHTY GARRET? you think she should PERISH on the STREET?”.
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this article mentions the homeowners's property tax bill ($9,394) but for some reason they omit the corresponding value of his property, which is $3.18 million.
A Burnaby man says his property taxes have jumped by 70 per cent in one year because of his proximity to a SkyTrain station. READ MORE:
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the RCMP's values of reconciliation, equality, diversity and inclusion
Today the #RCMP officially announces the addition of the Ribbon Skirt to the RCMP uniform. The Ribbon Skirt, along with our Eagle Feather and Métis Sash, demonstrate the RCMP’s values of reconciliation, equity, diversity, and inclusion.
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we want to believe that beauty and talent spring from some kind of essential moral quality but actually being good & being talented are orthogonal.
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Tech bros “discovering” that anorexia makes you hyperfocused and euphoric is the dumbest trend of 2019.
Runs two companies, eats no food, needs an intervention. Billionaire Jack Dorsey's 11 wellness hacks:
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not sure you guys understand what i’m dealing with when i say my cat is “too long.” this is simply too much. someone cross-bred a cat and a snake and now i have to live with it.
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as documented by an alum, bookstore staff at @emilycarru were allegedly made to remove a display of books about Palestine and settler-colonialism
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@clhubes ahhh to me it sounded like strep but I've never had HFM! either way it does not sound like a rhinovirus.
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last night my 3-year-old put on her coat and boots and told me she wanted to "go outside for some air," stood on the back porch for 10 minutes and then came in and told me it was "very refreshing.".
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@KalinDokis personally very disappointed by the options in my province & federally, but if you are the rare exception voting with your whole heart then I’m happy for you!.
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choosing to believe in theory no. 2. there's an alternate ending somewhere featuring Kate Hudson getting her how-to into the hands of the UN just in time to broker an armistice (the UN negotiator is played by Chad Michael Murray)
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@brennaneleffler so you can imagine how much worse it is for the 25% of Canadian seniors who rent and have no equity and no security.
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A reality show where smug Canadians who live in cities east of the Rockies and make fun of Vancouver drivers have to get behind the wheel and navigate our unplowed slush/black ice-laden side streets.
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working on a last-minute Halloween costume for the baby
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FYI the university took a break from living, laughing, loving, and learning to update their website but it has been preserved for ✨posterity✨ by @notleora.
@michellecyca @PaulVermeersch @Ian_Mosby Have archived this, in case anyone doesn't believe it's for real!
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incredible that this story on the decline of point grey cites **online shopping** as a cause and not the fact that all the houses cost $3.5m and current residents oppose density, so no one can afford to live or shop there.
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fascinating to see someone describing my ideal scenario— local daycare facilities springing up to meet demand, creating a critical density of childcare that serves the neighbourhood— as a worst-case outcome
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@clhubes it’s been three years and i still think of the woman i met at baby’s birthday party who told me her toddler had “never seen a screen in her life, because i’m always fully present”.
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possible that this movie actually did influence my approach to journalism
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for me the most heartbreaking part of this devastating story is how Andrea & her sisters kept this family secret for decades, because they loved their mother despite everything she failed to protect them from.
In the home of Alice Munro, a dark secret lurked. Now, her children want the world to know.
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today of all days, it's unfathomably grotesque to draw a false comparison between the legacy of residential schools and this hateful campaign to strip trans youth of their rights, in order to pander to a bunch of conspiracy theorists and bigots.
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406 infractions, so a fine of just over $100 each for a company polluting sensitive fish habitat with mining waste. in comparison, residents of Vancouver can be fined $750 for not shovelling snow off the sidewalk.
B.C. coal mining company penalized $41,100
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I'm going to go eat an ice cream cone in the sun with my baby, but one last observation: a lot of people seem to think it's rude or hostile to accurately describe someone with a lot of material wealth as "rich" and I find that profoundly mystifying.
this is a very common attitude in Vancouver: many people seem to believe that the millions of dollars in wealth represented by their home does not make them, objectively speaking, wealthy.
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disheartening to see candidates who worked so hard on engaged, thoughtful, progressive campaigns crushed by a bland, largely faceless billionaire-backed group who ran on a fear-mongering platform stoking hatred against the poor.
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@bluestockinsara @hoot_little the vast majority of people who are shopping fast fashion are doing so by choice for convenience. i don’t think it’s shaming anyone to point out the enormous harms of that industry, and bad faith arguments to defend it should be critiqued.
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I cannot believe that people who live NEXT TO A PLAYGROUND are able to veto a neighbourhood daycare proposal because they hate the sound of children playing!
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For @macleans, I wrote about how our country invested in the promise of homeownership as the path to economic prosperity and security, which has led us to a moment of incredible inequality: .
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several twitter economists have informed me that the pronouns in my bio are responsible for the housing crisis. i'm so sorry everyone. i had no idea.
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this tweet introduced thousands of people from around the world to the brain-liquifying reality of what “$2 million dollar home” means in Vancouver, and also germinated my @macleans feature how our national housing market got so fucked up. fruitful!
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got a little spicy in @macleans about the limits of the settler imagination when it comes to reconciliation & Indigenous sovereignty
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one last point before i go back to tweeting photos of my cat. my parents worked very hard and i'm grateful to benefit from that. but secure housing is a human right— it shouldn't only be available to those who can attain high-paying jobs or who are born into wealth.
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