My answer is going to be consistent with Lorne Waldman's answer to a similar question, which is that the backlog grew so big and got so out of control and became so expensive to manage that....
The government has for years been criticized by every opposition party, every practitioner, every intending immigrant or family member who wanted to be reunited--industry sectors and so on. They had to do something. But they've used a very draconian piece of legislation, which we're unaccustomed to in Canada, to centralize a lot of power in the minister and his or her officials to achieve something that's very totalitarian, that concentrates power outside the scope of Parliament and accountability by stakeholders like us.
It's just beyond the pale, really, is what it comes to. Why? Because they think they can get away with it in a budget.