The v1.2.4 release might fix up some of your issues:

This release adds TCP fallback to the DNS stub resolver, fixing the longstanding inability to query large DNS records and incompatibility with recursive nameservers that don't give partial results in truncated UDP responses. It also makes a number of other bug fixes and improvements in DNS and related functionality, including making both the modern and legacy API results differentiate between NODATA and NxDomain conditions so that the caller can handle them differently.

Not that it matters much if you've already migrated away to a libc distribution.

emacs with magit and meow are just amazing efficiency add-ons to my workflow. when your tools just get out of your way and keep you in the flow, it's much easier to stay productive.

CBC doesn't seem to have a feed for just Vancouver news.

It might be a bit of overload just pulling things from the BC feed and dumping that here: https://rss.cbc.ca/lineup/canada-britishcolumbia.xml

I'm unsure what other drivers their are, but the White Rock chamber of commerce is trying to get the government to limit rent increases: https://www.peacearchnews.com/business/white-rock-council-chamber-red-flag-commercial-rents-crisis/

migadu has been pretty solid the last few years and they've got some great pricing on plans that'll be sufficient to host an entire family.