Legitimized stigma doesn’t mean legitimate stigma

Ottawa, a city that prides itself on progressive values and cultural inclusivity, has a dirty little secret: it’s a masterclass in legitimized stigma. We’re not talking about blatant, red-faced bigotry here; no, this is the socially sanctioned, policy-driven kind—the kind that comes dressed in a suit, signed in triplicate, and rubber-stamped as “for the public good.” It's a stigma with a PR team and a taxpayer-funded ad campaign, and it’s tearing our communities apart.

Legitimized stigma is what happens when society quietly agrees to paint certain groups—those struggling with homelessness, addiction, poverty, or mental health issues—as “problems” rather than people. It’s why we see policies designed to push the vulnerable out of sight and out of mind, all while slapping a coat of civility on systemic cruelty. Nowhere is this more evident than in Ottawa, where this quiet brand of discrimination thrives under the guise of “public safety” and “neighborhood preservation.”

Let’s start with everyone’s favorite scapegoat: homelessness. Walk through Ottawa’s downtown core, and you’ll see benches designed to make sleeping impossible, spikes installed under bridges, and “no loitering” signs slapped on every vertical surface. This is not a coincidence. It’s a calculated effort to dehumanize people who have no place else to go. These measures, often described as “urban design,” are nothing more than sanitized hostility—proof that the city would rather invest in making life uncomfortable for the unhoused than in solutions that actually work.

But Ottawa doesn’t stop at benches. Take a look at the city’s shelter system, where overcrowding and underfunding are the norm. The waiting list for subsidized housing is longer than most people’s life expectancy out here, and yet, the public narrative continues to frame homelessness as a personal failure rather than a systemic one. Our dignity and safety appears to be worth less than a condo development. The silence from policymakers is deafening.

Then there’s addiction—a topic so rife with legitimized stigma it might as well be its own municipal department. Ottawa, like much of Ontario, has embraced a twisted logic: close supervised consumption sites, restrict harm reduction services, and force people into “treatment” without addressing the underlying causes of addiction. Meanwhile, public discourse continues to frame people who use drugs as reckless criminals, conveniently ignoring the complex intersections of trauma, poverty, and mental health that lead to substance use in the first place.

When Ottawa shuts down a safe injection site under the pretext of “protecting children,” what it’s really doing is pushing away “unsightly” anti-social behaviours because it’s easier and less time consuming then having to sit down with their children and teach them about real world topics.  It’s saying, loud and clear, that some lives are worth saving and others are not. The health and safety of people who use drugs, many of whom are parents themselves, are dismissed as collateral damage in a war against imagined threats. And while we’re busy clutching our pearls over proximity to daycares (even though drug addicts do their best to practice decency in areas designated for children) people are dying.

In Ottawa, “affordable housing” is a phrase that would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. Rents continue to skyrocket, wages stagnate, and landlords—emboldened by neglecting tenancy laws because they can just fear monger tenants —routinely exploit vulnerable renters. The city’s solution? More gentrification, fewer rent controls, and an affordable housing strategy that seems to think “affordable” means “a couple hundred bucks below market rate.” Even though subsidies and supplements are calculated using the lowest dollar amounts. Meanwhile, those who can’t keep up are shuffled into substandard housing or pushed further into poverty.

All of this stigma isn’t just harmful—it’s lazy. It’s easier to point fingers at the individual than to overhaul the system. It’s simpler to call someone a junkie or a deadbeat than to address the policies that keep them trapped in cycles of despair. If we just raise the minimum wage by 10% (even though the cost of living then goes up 20%)and then lower the poverty line by 15%, that’s somehow an effective poverty reduction strategy. And it’s far more convenient to criminalize poverty, addiction, and homelessness than to actually assume responsibility for them or admit that these issues are the inevitable result of a society built to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

But here’s the thing about legitimized stigma: it doesn’t just harm the people it targets. It harms all of us. When we allow policies and public attitudes to dehumanize certain groups, we normalize a culture of apathy and cruelty. We create a society where empathy is optional and human rights are conditional. And in doing so, we rob ourselves of the possibility for real progress.

So, Ottawa, it’s time for a reality check. The next time you see a “no loitering” sign, a gentrified neighborhood, or a shuttered safe injection site, ask yourself: who benefits from this? Because it sure as hell isn’t the people these measures claim to protect. And the next time you hear someone justify a policy that punishes the vulnerable, remember this: stigma may wear a mask of legitimacy, but beneath it lies the same old prejudice we’ve been fighting for generations.

Legitimized stigma doesn’t mean legitimate stigma—it means you’re discriminating against vulnerable people and lying to yourselves about it.  Ottawa, you’re better than this—or at least you should be.