It appears that there is some confusion in the understanding of the processing times posted on the CIC website.
It is stated that the time posted,e.g. for CEC PR 80% of the applications were processed and decided within 12 months. Some understand this to be the average time. This is not correct and the chances that ones application will exceed 12 months is only 20% which is fairly low. So it is obvious that those whose applications have gone beyond 12 months should be 1 in 5 people, however, from what "appears" from this forum many more people are going beyond 12 months. As the 12 months is what happened in the year 2013/2012, this 12 month figure may be well short of what a current applicant should expect. Also, CIC states that the figure is updated every 3 months so the site should be showing the 80% figures for the first 3 months of 2015 (Jan, Feb, March). Only this figure will give applicants a true estimate which they can then use to make decisions, arrangements, etc in their lives.