Don't worry too much about it. CIC has been dealing with an enormous backlog lately, and for that reason NS has been processing PR files as well, not just Ottawa. There are applicants who have gotten every piece of correspondence from NS throughout their processing, and just the final PPR email from Ottawa. The source of the MR email doesn't seem to matter time-wise, and the time at which the file is transferred to Ottawa carries less meaning now than what it used to. I highly doubt that getting emails from NS would mean that the PR would be received significantly later.
The call centre agents are notoriously clueless about what's going on, and they're also not allowed to say much more than what the official guideline is (17 months processing time). If you look at all the people who got PPR yesterday (me included), no one's file had been processed for 17 months in Ottawa. The 17 months is just a target for them, basically to cover their own asses, so that when the vast majority of applicants get processed faster than that (although there's always some exceptions) they can pat themselves in the back and say they did a good job for going under the target.
