Hi Cam,
you can ask your local Member of Parliament to follow up your application,( as far as I know it is for people living in Canada) ,but they can only follow it up. They can't apply any pressure to speed up he process. At least my MP couldn't. She only said that it is not in process(a few months ago), a few days ago she said ,it is in process, and you may hear sth until April 25, and that's all! However I can't be sure that she is right and I really will hear sth until then. That's all MP did for me.
If anybody else has any experience with MP, please share!
Cheers
Bahar