All China applicants are processed via the HKVO. You can see which office is responsible for which country on CIC's website. My understanding is that Mississauga office processes the sponsor part (and probably any pre-processing stuff) before passing it to the relevant VO (in this case, the HKVO). No idea if this is different for inland... I suppose not.
But it hasn't been that long since August, and the CIC does claim "within 12 months" for 80% of applicants... though it seems most cases are done way before this. Check the excel for timing. It can be a bit all over the place due to each case being different. But it will give you some idea.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...FqE27qjjvgsCWaY9_Txuvpnpk/edit#gid=1406942392
Hope this helps assuage your fears (or at the least help you plan)!
EDIT: If it's any comfort, my case was received in June, everything's clean and straightforward, but we are still waiting (bg check not started yet).