I am well aware that the major determining factor is the local office at which an application is processed. If not the Minister's, whose responsibility is it to ensure that resources are allocated fairly and efficiently? Even during the worst years, processing times for many applicants were several months out East, while it took more than two years, on average, in the Prairies. It wasn't until a couple of months ago that the Edmonton office finally hired additional staff.
It was really Jason Kenney who created the problem: it was during his tenure that CIC started issuing RQs left and right without doing anything to increase capacity. There were 260,000 applications approved in 2006, before the Cons took power, and the backlog was 200,000 (and whatever applications there were in the backlog were processed within a year). There were only 110K and 130K applications, respectively, approved in 2012 and 2013, while the backlog doubled to 400,000. Who the hell was responsible for that, space aliens???
To some extent I feel bad for Chris Alexander, because his was given the nearly impossible job of fixing Kenney's ungodly mess. Citizenship processing times have finally improved, but mostly for recent applicants, and mostly in the parts of the country where it will help the Cons in the upcoming elections. PR processing times? When Alexander took office in mid-2013, in-country spousal sponsorship took a little over a year. It takes more than 2 years now. PR card renewals went from 80 days in 2013 to 160 in 2014. Great job, no doubt!