Thank you for the question.
Currently, it takes about one week for someone to be able to take their private pilot or commercial pilot exam. When the instructor feels that the student is ready, they can call in and arrange for the exam to take place fairly quickly. The flight exam can be cancelled due to weather, but it is easy to reschedule it for the next day, the weekend or the following week, if necessary.
However, for a flight instructor flight exam, at least two months are needed, without the possibility of a definitive date because, for the time being, examiners must be airline pilots and have other professional obligations. Since instructor training takes three months when attended full time, as it is generally the case with us, it is difficult to set at the start of the training a specific date for the final exam because a two-month advance notice is needed, which is reset if the exam has to be postponed. So that leads to significant delays. At the same time, I know some class 1 instructors who are currently on the ground as flight examiners and would like to be flight instructor examiners for Transport Canada, but they are being turned away because they are not airline pilots.