Moving forward, the inventory of Citizenship grant applications will be reduced significantly based on the reasons outlined below, and that would mean that the applications currently being processed will be the only ones, aside from a few odd new ones that CIC will devote its energy to. The reasons are as follows:
1 - Only new applications that CIC will see for approx. a year will be the ones from people residing here for a long time, so in those cases, the residency requirement won't make any difference. For any one else, they simply have to wait another year to accumulate the required days in order to file a petition for citizenship.
2- majority of the individuals filing citizenship claims were either former foreign workers or international students. New applications from individuals belonging to this category will now have to wait another two years before filing a claim.
Therefore, in my opinion, they came up with a very smart tactic and it kinda kills two birds with one stone. Number one being: giving CIC almost up to 2 years to address the backlog, and two: addressing the problem Canada faced from individuals who were just here to obtain Canadian passports.
People who got in before the deadline, I am certain that your application will be processed within a year.
Cheers