The city of Cambridge, ON

Cambridge, ON is a small city. I have mistakenly referred to it as a town, only to be reprimanded by those who were born and raised here (I have only lived in Cambridge a few years).  In fact, the city of Cambridge is Waterloo Region’s second largest community and home to just under 130,000 people.

Despite the unanimous belief that Cambridge is indeed a city and not a town, however, Cambridge is internally quite divided. There are three distinct neighbourhoods: Galt, Hespeler, and Preston. And the citizens of each neighbourhood often claim that their own neighbourhood is better than the others. That weird sort pride probably comes out of the fact that each neighbourhood used to be their own town. It was only in 1973 that the Province of Ontario amalgamated them into one city.

The people from each part of the city claim to be able to describe what makes each part of their city distinct. Personally – I don’t buy it. While the daily traffic nightmare I contend with undoubtedly tells the story of three towns that were forced together, the alleged disparities in income and education between the communities, I think, are nothing more than the judgmental attitudes of some of its citizens. Because in Cambridge, judgement abounds. The internal animosity between Galt, Preston, and Hespeler is just one manifestation of the judgmental attitude. Another is the general attitude towards the addicted.

Addiction in Cambridge

According to a Public Health Ontario report, there has been 1,337 opioid related deaths in Ontario between July 2017 and June 2018. In the Waterloo Region where Cambridge is located, there were close to 50 deaths in the same period. There is no denying that Cambridge, even as a small city, is among the top cities in Canada affected by addiction.

Even still, Cambridge citizens are reluctant to implement the services that would help its addicted. Talks about a Supervised Injection Site, now referred to as a Consumption and Treatment Site (CTS), have been going on for more than two years with no real progress. Each time future plans are proposed, implementation is stalled because private citizens’ groups protest the opening of such a site in its most strategic location: one of the downtown cores (of Galt, Hespeler, or Preston).

A CTS in a downtown core would optimize the accessibility of the site. It would be within walking distance to similar support services, the city’s largest emergency shelter, the churches that provide free meals, and the Cambridge city bus terminal. Nevertheless, citizens groups like For a Clean Cambridge, A Better Cambridge, and Cambridge Safe and Strong disagree; according to them, a CTS site in a downtown location would only increase criminal activity, paraphernalia litter, and decrease foot traffic for businesses in the downtown area.

Almost everything these groups claim, however, have been disproven. Criminal activity does not go up, paraphernalia litter around a CTS is usually taken care of quickly, and businesses won’t suddenly lose customers because an addictions service opens up nearby. So, I have been asking myself, why would these individuals, who are smart and motivated enough to form an organized group and lobby for their interests, disregard the research on the topic?

The rise of the Social & the origins of isolation

Much like the private nature of their respective Facebook groups suggest (the joining of which requires approval from an administrator), the Cambridge citizens groups are not political groups but are, in fact, social ones. To be clear, there is nothing inherently harmful about social groups; they can be extensions of the private realm in which, as one of my research collaborators Katy Fulfer put it, “we are able to rest from public appearance.” Social groups, like the privacy of the household, give us a chance to connect with and talk to individuals about interests we share. Since we are not engaging in political endeavours when we are socializing, we don’t have to spend our time with everyone equally.

However, as Hannah Arendt warns in her book, The Human Condition, we must emerge from the private realm into the public one since it is in the public realm where we pursue meaningful projects or political changes. It is in the public realm where we are free, according to Arendt, to speak and act with those who share our interests. It is the public realm, thus, where we need others because it is there that we go to escape “the prolongation or multiplication of one’s own position” (Arendt, The Human Condition, page 57).

The fate of one city

In Cambridge, the public realm is giving way to a rising social realm. Social groups like these citizens groups are passing as political groups, even though they can only be described as superficially political since they fail to engage with different minded others. In fact, they seem closed off to other viewpoints entirely; their resistant attitude towards harm reduction research is a testament to the social nature of their group. They aren’t interested in appearing in public, as Arendt would put it, but rather invested in making the public realm smaller. They are happy to be “deprived of seeing and hearing others, of being seen and being heard by” others because they don’t see that they are “imprisoned in the subjectivity of their own singular experience” (Arendt, The Human Condition, page 58).

The proposal for a CTS in a non-downtown area will only exacerbate this problem. The most marginalized in Cambridge will literally be pushed to the outskirts of town where opportunities to speak with others and be seen by others will be practically non-existent. A prison of enforced privacy will be their punishment for being addicted, for being different. Instead of being welcomed into the public realm, which is only made better by a diversity of people, these persons with an addiction will be shunned and, in turn, the world will be a little less real, only little more than what those in power dictate it is.

In a nearby city – Kitchener

On October 15, 2019, the city of Kitchener (also in Waterloo Region) opened its first CTS at 150 Duke Street West, about 500 metres from the City Hall, across the street from an adult education centre, and 300 metres from the downtown community centre. Needless to say, the CTS is right in the heart of downtown Kitchener.

The discourse surrounding the CTS in Kitchener is also remarkably different from the one in Cambridge. There are no private citizens groups protesting the implementation in a downtown site or in the municipality at all. In fact, at public meetings about the CTS, many different social services organizations banded together to outline the needs for the site. They were also adamant that the site be implemented at a location accessible to those without a car – to ensure that anyone who wanted to use the site could use it.

My speculations

Unlike the situation in Kitchener, much of Cambridge remain adamantly opposed to a CTS in their community. If it must absolutely be built, they protest, they want the CTS in a secluded area part of town, far from businesses and regular foot traffic. They don’t want the CTS to be a fixture in Cambridge and, I’m sure, they don’t want CTS users to feel like they are a part of Cambridge. The message is quite clear: stay out of sight. As if the addicted must be shunned and hidden away. As if they wished the addicted didn’t exist.

The public realm, which depends on and is made better by a diversity of people and ideas, will diminish in Cambridge. The imposed solitude of the addicted risks becoming forced isolation. When plurality and diversity are shunned, instead of affirmed and celebrated, the public realm will suffer. It will no longer be able to shake people loose of their own beliefs – the public realm will become an extension of the private – affirming only what we already believe. The people of Cambridge, I fear, might one day find themselves unfree. They will be unable to share or come up with new ideas because there won’t be a place to do that anymore. They will be uprooted.

I can only hope that Cambridge will follow the example of Kitchener. The people there are largely supportive and willing to be inclusive. The CTS location also speaks to that – it is in a place where its users will not be out of the public eye. Despite their addiction, Kitchener CTS users will be able to feel a part of their city. They can feel at home in their city because the others who call Kitchener their home have recognized them for who they are and what they want. They can also do the same for others; meet and talk with people who are not addicted and affirm their uniqueness in turn. This is the magic of the public realm. It can allow you to be at home with others.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash