Late last spring, the department pre-published a notice of intent. It flagged our intention to move forward with regulatory proposals to put in place conditional permanent residence status for new spousal applicants. This was meant to ensure that those who are entering into relationships of convenience would be deterred from doing so. Conditional permanent residence status would mean that they could live and work in Canada if they were deemed after a certain period, say, two or three years, to be still in a legitimate relationship, with appropriate exemptions for cases of domestic violence.
On February 14th, 2012. See this statement in context.