In the space of two years, the number of supervised consumption sites approved to operate in Canada has gone from one to 22, plus three interim sites.
In November 2015, when Justin Trudeau's new Liberal government was sworn in, there was only Vancouver's Insite.
Health Canada has now granted approval to two dozen new sites in 11 cities. There are permanent or mobile facilities approved for Victoria, Surrey, Kelowna, Kamloops, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. Another five applications are pending.
That simple count alone might suggest that the debate over supervised consumption sites, or at least the most pitched and divisive version of that debate, is rapidly receding into the past.
There also appears to be a difference of tone in the partisan discussion.
