Currently it's taking upwards of 2 months for sponsorship approval for outland applicants. Then the file gets sent to the visa office in ottawa. Once there, it's taking another 3-5 months before a decision is made. If there is an issue with the app, it my take longer. As stated above, recent applicants are landing in 5-7 months time. There are a handful of files that have taken a year or more (Which include some in LA), and there are a good amount of applications taking 8-10 months. No matter which way you dice it, outland is definitely the quicket route right now to living and working legally in canada. I'd really recommend taking a look at the ottawa spreadsheet in my signature to see the current "trends" for us applicants.
as for withdrawing the application, i am not sure how that works. for the fees, i would immagine if they haven't applied them to your application, they are still useable. You will probably need to get a new FBI record. And of course fill out the outland forms, which are different than inland. I would recommend checking around this forum for expert advice on how to do it successfully, if it's still an option.
Good luck!
