I attended yesterday’s webinar form NDVO. And this is what I remember.
One of the spokesperson said due to the staffing issues at the overseas visa offices a lot of the files are being moved back to Canada where they have increased staff to process more applications plus they have no timeline in place and IRCC processing times no longer apply to any application.
Also for biometrics they are completely booked until the end of January 2021 ( though this does not apply to spousal visa applicants who have applied before the pandemic since we have submitted biometrics already).
And they are not processing applications in first come first serve order, they process applications based on importance of who needs it more than the others.
It was said that family and students are being “prioritized” but I think they are only processing as many student visa applications as they can since they started biometrics on November 25th so that before the January 2021 intake they can approve hundreds of thousands of student visa backlog and therefore there hasn’t been any update for spousal visa applicants since last four weeks.