From what I am seeing, the Montreal and the Toronto offices are starting to move really fast, and these are usually the most crowded offices, and that's also where most of the backlog is located. Toronto seems to be faster than Montreal, but Montreal is catching up slowly but surely. We will see in the coming weeks what will happen. Honestly, I don't think that this trend will continue forever, it surely costs too much and requires a lot of personnel, that's why I think that they are spending more money in order to clear the biggest part of the backlog and to take care of as many applications as possible before they table the new law. This also makes me come to the conclusion that the changes in the new law are going to be drastic. Nothing happens without a reason and CIC is surely trying to limit the consequences of having too many potential unhappy people ready to attack in case a very controverial bill is tabled. 350 000 potential protestors, that's way too much for the conservative government to digest before the coming elections! Also, if 10% of those who are in the backlog decide to file a lawsuit, again, that's a lot of problems that Harper would love to avoid before the coming elections. That's my not too wild guess....