Applied through Permanent Residence Portal (the new portal) on April 13, 2021.
Received AOR today (May 2, 2022).
Hopefully that can provide a beacon of hope to some. Feel free to ask me questions through here or direct messages.
Details: BC, Base nomination, Skills Immigration – Intl Post Graduation. Currently reside in Canada. Medical done on my own initiative in October 2021, never submitted the upfront form, appears to be passed today. BIL received today. Zero changes on status on the "new portal", only emails. There were three emails today, one containing BIL as attachment, one asking me to link the application, one providing what appears to be AOR as an email, but only contains the following sentence (alongside of course the usual general crap):
This confirms that your application for permanent residence in Canada has been received by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) on 2021/04/13.
Background check appears to be initiated today, showed on the "normal portal" (IRCC My Account). So does review of eligibility.