From page six of this thread:
There have been some changes to reduce the number of Pre-Secs currently being processed. It may be, I repeat may be, possible for waivers to be given for people coming from one of the original NATO countries (those from the USA still require a FBI check), people coming to Canada at <16 years old and don't have any immediate relatives out of country, people who already hold a a Canadian security clearance from another federal department, and any cases that the CO/Det Comd is worthy of risk management (people who have done missionary work, etc.). All on-going pre-secs will be reviewed to determine if they can be waived. Note that this waiver policy will be applied on a case by case basis.
The medical process will only be made faster if two things happen together: 1) The CF increases the size of the medical staff at CFRG and 2) The wait times for civilian MDs/Specialists is significantly reduced. 1) can be done and 2) who knows. However, this process has gotten a lot faster and unless the applicants has serious medical issues the medicals come back very fast.
I find that the processing time most effects Reserve applicants, since they are mostly younger and simply looking for a part-time job, not a career. Many have lost interest or moved on by the time they are ready to be sworn in. I think Three, Six, or Twelve months waiting is justifiable for a career, but not for a summer and part-time job.
The problem is attributable to several factors: in some cases the reserve unit does not pressure the applicant to get their applications in as soon as possible and will sometimes sit on applications waiting for the applicant to provide further information instead of getting on their asses to get it in; the applicant takes too long to provide the information to complete their applications and/or applies too late in the year to make it for summer training and ends up waiting for the fall; some reserve units do not have full-time or dedicated recruiting staff and even if an applicant applies on time and with a complete application there is no one to accept or other staff will file the application away; CFRC/Ds have other priorities which include ROTP, Reg F DEO and NCMs; some CFRC/Ds deal with several reserve units in their AORs and may have to juggle the processing slots between all of them and some units may not get as many slots as they wish; some CFRC/Ds don't have the staff to deal with the workload; there are not enough medical resources to deal with the workload in CFRG; and Brigades and Headquarters consistently play with numbers and some units, although they have the applicants, will end up losing training slots and the applicant loses out. Are there solutions to these issues? Yes but they may be too expensive for some to handle. Hire full-time recruiters for every unit, assign strict deadlines for reserve applications: both for the applicant and for the reserve unit to get them into the CFRC/Ds, hire more recruiting staff and/or allocate the recruiting resources from less productive CFRC/Ds to the more busier ones.
The optimal time to get any applicant into the CF should be less than three months and the average is now around less than six months. Again the time taken is dependant on several factors not only including the trade selected but what baggage the applicant brings to the counter.