The courts were established following the Gladue decision of 1999. There was a concern by judges that even though the court had instructed them to do certain things as a result of Gladue, they didn't have the information or expertise to be able to do that. The idea of the Gladue court came from judges who decided that maybe one way to do that was to locate, at least in Toronto, the expertise in one or two courts where they would best be able to follow the dictates of the Supreme Court.
On October 17th, 2006. See this statement in context.