That's a very valid question. Logic suggests the following:
1 - To process 25000 refugee cases by February 2016, CIC needs trained personnel. They probably wont employ too many new officers because that will take too much time to ramp up and learn. So either they have called back retired CIC officers or have shifted current officers to process refugee cases. Considering the load, my bet is they utilized all 3 alternatives mentioned above.
2 - CIC relies on government and third party private organizations for screening, security/background & medical checks. Having to do 25000 more applications (on priority - before February 2016), on top of an already burdened schedule will surely cause immense delays from this end. I doubt private organizations will increase their staff on short term to meet CIC needs. Closest they will do is the same as part 1, which again doesn't help our case.
3 - They need more money. A lot of money to get this done. Its not a surprise, they asked for RPRF fee from many applicants a few weeks back. Even from those applicants who just received their AOR. ("rjml123" is one of examples)
To summarize, I thing they really are focusing just on the refugees for now. They most definitely should, but I do hope they hire more Visa officers and train them so our applications can be processed along as well.