Yup background checks are the longest and therefor adding up to RQ processing timeline. I recall for my immigration the background checks took about 1.5 years.
I agree with the above post, if you ask cic agent a straight question, they basicaly wing you off. one lady acted like a robot soo cold and basically wanted to give answers based on whatever i know and refused to do any work in investigating. I kept calling again and again and finally a nice lady answered and she told me my background checks are done (csis, security, immigration, criminal) they were just waiting on rq to be reviewed. I am really hoping to get a test date atleast by the end of the month.
