First thing - Fraser is gone! He is no more handling portfolio of IRCC, he is in housing now. There is another guy.
And right when the other guy came in - we started getting messages of refusal on this forum. You can look it up - and match the dates.
Secondly, to be fair to Fraser and IRCC, the policy was never 100% clearly shared on the CIC website with each single details and clauses. It did not even clearly spell out the requirement of AOR. But it said in vague words - that the applications must be in process and perhaps crossed certain milestones. Some keen observers like
@armoured @Kaibigan @ERCAN and others noticed it at that point, and we started discussing what will happen next. And we knew that there is a lot of 'FINE TUNING' coming in this policy.....but I did not expect a halt and suspension of the policy - as the situation currently seems.