Here the answer is was given:
Thank you for your inquiry regarding the processing timeline of your Federal Skilled Worker application under the Ministerial Instructions 1.
On 17 November 2010 we sent you a letter acknowledging the receipt of your application.
The following information may be useful to you in explaining processing times.
Changes to immigration law in 2008 allow us to set, through ministerial instructions, the number and type of applications considered for processing each year, and the order in which these applications will be processed.
Under the first set of instructions Citizenship and Immigration (CIC) used our new authority under immigration law to control the type of applications received, but not the number. We learned that wasn't sufficient. With so much competition and interest in immigrating to Canada, applicants, and sometimes consultants, look for ways to fit applications into the eligibility criteria in effect at the time. Therefore, before we introduced a cap on the federal skilled worker program as part of the second set of ministerial instructions, the number of applications we received exceeded our ability to process them in a timely way.
Your application was submitted under the first set of instructions and unfortunately it will take longer to process federal skilled worker applications submitted under these instructions, those received between February 27, 2008 and June 25, 2010. During this time, the department received applications for more than 425,000 people, and 144,000 of these have not yet received a decision.
This number represents more than twice the number of projected admissions under the federal skilled worker program in 2011, so many of these applicants will have to wait two years or more to be processed.
The length of time it takes to finalize an application varies from one visa office to another since visa offices face different challenges operating in different countries, regions and even in different offices within the same region. Factors which can influence why processing may take longer from one visa office to another include the number of applications received, particularly if there is an existing inventory which has to be processed; resources in a given office; a higher need for medical and security screening; poor to no communication via phone or mail, the safety and security of staff, as well as emergency situations or crises that affect workload and priorities.
CIC continues to work towards global service standards and the use of departmental standard forms to minimize such regional variations as much as possible.
Trusting this information is of some assistance to you,
Regards,