I'm not aware of any new requirements. This is firmly in Quebec govt's court. Note, this is now being seen just because Ircc started reporting the numbers separately.
See here:
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2...is-plus-long-au-quebec-que-le-reste-du-canada
Bottom line- Quebec's targets for spousal and family immigration are far below the number of applications.
Not clear the mechanism but Quebec must be limiting the completions to keep numbers lower. The feds have no interest in keeping the numbers down.
What they each are playing at is diverting the blame from themselves but as quietly as possible (politics). Bit it's clearly a Quebec thing.