Probably not. But, who knows?
Note, at the least, when the new application is opened at CPC-Sydney the official screening the application will immediately recognize that there is either an application already in process, or if that application has been withdrawn that there was an application and that it has been withdrawn. These days we do not know the precise criteria which can result in RQ-related non-routine processing, but in the past the fact there was a previous application was one of the more direct factors leading to RQ-related processing. That noted, depending on the individual's specific history and situation, what happens in individual cases varies extensively; how it actually goes for any particular individual can vary widely compared to how it goes for other applicants, even those who appear to be in very comparable situations.
Which in turn leads to . . . Any discussion about the processing timeline should clearly distinguish between statistical information versus any particular individual's processing timeline. Trends and probabilities are one thing. What happens in a specific person's case is specific to that individual, and that is subject to way too many variables, too many details, not to mention a range of conditionals and contingencies, for anyone here to in any way reliably forecast the prospective timeline for any specific person . . . that is, other than describing the trends and probabilities generally.
The latter drags this back to the backlog problem. As I previously noted, since dealing with backlogged cases is outside the routine processing stream in almost any bureaucratic context, bureaucracies in general typically have problems addressing and resolving backlogs. BUT CIC/IRCC has, in particular, an especially dismal history in this regard.
The history of how Canada handled skilled worker PR applications a decade ago is perhaps the most salient, egregious, and eventually unfair example . . . in a fashion scores of applicants with long-term pending applications suddenly had their applications, in effect, thrown out in order to eliminate the backlog. (Note, early on in this particular topic, some of the blatant fearmongering here claimed something similar was likely to happen to citizenship applicants; for many reasons that was just raw and unfounded fearmongering, and is not worth revisiting. I mention the skilled worker situation as an example of just how badly CIC/IRCC tends to deal with backlogs, not as an example about what can happen for citizenship applicants.)
Another historical example more specific to citizenship applications was also around a decade ago. There was a huge backlog of applications due to draconian measures implemented by the Harper government's effort to crack down on fraud, which was more or less resolved by the time I applied, so that processing new applications was back on track, while the backlogged applications remained bogged down. The result was that I, and many others who applied around the same time as I did, were taking the oath long before scores who had applied two, three, and some even four years before us.
A sidebar: a big difference between the situation now and the situation then, was that for many of us the direction the Harper government was headed was obvious; their rhetoric about the extent to which they perceived widespread fraud and abuses, combined with the legislation being tabled, and the steadily increasing processing timeline (back then the government was more transparent -- there were regular publicly disclosed reports showing how long it took to process 20% of applications and 50% of applications, in addition to the report for 80%, so we could get a far more detailed sense of how long processing was taking). We could see what was happening. Thus, I actually waited MORE than an EXTRA YEAR to make my application based in significant part on that (in conjunction with the Harper era draconian triage criteria for imposing RQ, both part of the same thing). THE DIFFERENCE this time around is no one saw the Covid-19 global pandemic coming. No one eligible to apply in 2019 could have reasonably anticipated that those applications would run into a big wall in March of 2020 and get buried in a backlog. Those of you who applied in 2019 and were still short of the finish line in February 2020 were, in effect, blindsided by the gods.
A CAVEAT:
The Star is not always an entirely reliable source. And I have not otherwise seen the numbers the Star reports. As I have noted, those numbers tend to say, relative to the primary objective for this thread, to push IRCC to resume processing citizenship applications toward achieving a more or less normal timeline, that MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. But I do not mean to be staging a George Bush aircraft carrier style celebration. Especially since addressing the backlogged applications is still an outstanding concern.
But it sure is encouraging news. How encouraging depends on how consistently IRCC is progressing with both new and backlogged applications.
The other caveat, the omnipresent caveat, is that even in the best of times many find citizenship application processing dreadfully and painfully slow. Many individuals will still be in WAIT mode, and many of these applicants will be in WAIT mode for a long while. And anyone encountering non-routine processing faces the prospect of an especially slow process . . . as badly as IRCC is in dealing with a backlog, it is even worse when dealing with non-routine applications during such times.
