I would assume this would be faster to process than other streams, my hunch is because of the following.
- Requirements are dead easy to verify. It's a simple yes, no if they meet the criteria.
- They aren't selecting the "best" candidates, it's a first come first serve process.
- The applicants are already in Canada, so they've previously had some sort of study permit, so they probably had some sort of police check AND health check. If they wanted these documents, they could go back to the study permit that's associated with the applicant and pull that information up.
Chances are this is targetting recent (0-2 years from graduation) full-time undergraduates/masters students from local universities in Canada (at least with the 40k pool), and it seems like they'll have some sort of new team to handle this pool of applicants.
Well, what makes CEC so enticing to people who meet requirements for both is that IRCC has expressed that CEC applications are processing at "full capacity", which means that's where the processing resources are going.
This new stream might be extremely simple, but assuming it follows the same process as EE:
Eligibility: Checks that the applicant meets the program requirements, with the new streams should be easy
Security: Very time consuming, you're scrutinized to see if you appear on the Interpol, FBI, etc databases
Criminality: Review your police certificates
Medical: Considers whether you're medically admissible or not
Info Sharing: Shares database information with other countries
Final: Whether you've been approved or not
But ultimately, if there are less officers taking care of the 90k applications it could mean this process might as well take as long as PNP.
It really sucks not to have the full information, it's very difficult to make an informed decision with FOMO, half-truths and with an upcoming EE reform.