I am not saying that this is what is happening but just sharing my experience - also, this has nothing to do with Canada but with New Zealand's Immigration policy, so here's what's happened there:
The avg. processing time for 75% of all applicants for their Skilled Migrant Category Resident Visa (equivalent of FSW-PR) was 6-months.
However, most applicants who submitted applications after 7th December 2018 began noticing that their applications were not being assigned to Case Officers. Immigration New Zealand (INZ) continuously stated on their official channels that everything is normal - but people who submitted their applications (and paid NZD3300 upfront), were not noticing any movement.
In December 2019 (12-months later), when nothing changed and most people who had submitted their applications after 7th December had still not been assigned to Case Officers, some applicants + Immigration Consultants decided to dig deeper and contacted the Ombudsman. Eventually, in March 2020, INZ was forced to finally post an official update that "since June 2018, they had been using a special critieria to determine which applications would be sent to Case Officers first."
Applicants were not informed about this "priority criteria" - and everyone who applied after December 7th 2018 (up until March 2020) was applying under the impression that everything is moving forward normally. And no, you cannot get a refund!
Moral of the Story: Immigration departments are not offering a service and are under no obligation to be transparent about their motives or actions. They are working in the best interests of the country they represent, not the applicants. They can state today that everything is moving normally but internally, they might have slowed down or shut up shop - its basic crisis management to prevent panic or a flood of emails/tweets/phone calls - and we are in the middle of the biggest crisis the world has ever seen!
So anything can happen - maybe they might suspend FSW draws for a few weeks knowing that people outside Canada might have trouble gathering documents or non-Canadian documents might be hard to verify - while documents from applicants within Canada might be easier to verify due to some local/inter-department connectivity.
OR,
Nothing might change and everything might go on as normal!
That said, the purpose of this post was to share my experience and say that speculation is not helpful because no one really knows what's happening behind the scenes. Hope for the best but ALWAYS prepare for the worst!