Really depends on the SCRIT. I'm not navy. So not familiar. How do those quals score out on the SCRIT? Are any of them hard requirements for promotion? Most trades will have an EPZ after 4 years. But yes, realistically most trades will obviously take a lot longer than that.
Fastest I've ever seen was a pilot 2LT I mentored in 2014. Wings in 2015. Major in 2020. LCOL in 2024. He was an exceptional individual who joined the CAF at 35 after making junior executive at an auto parts manufacturer at 30. He was exceptionally hard-working as a 2LT. When not on course, he did every secondary duty and PD course he could. Didn't waste a minute. Even as a 2LT. Needless to say, that kind of attitude and work ethic is rare. And it still took him 7-8 years of commissioned service to make Major.
A lot less scrit, a lot more is just time with a lot of OJT and developmental postings. OFP is 3-4 years (depending on platforms, sea time, course availability etc etc). D level courses are 3-4 months plus a 1-2 year posting. ORO is a 3 or 4 month course, then a 1-2 year posting. Usually a shore posting after that, then Command course (3 months?) then generally in promotion zone and merit listed for XO. ORO is merit listed, D levels are sort of tiered in terms of ops tempo so some screening for those.
Also things like BWK qual has some mulligans every year, board for OFP has mulligans every year, and Command course has some as well (although less then previously).
NWO and NTO trades are both old school, in that the OJTs consist of class training, practical OJT with specific sea going requirements, as well as a final oral board. I'm NTO, and my final board, after 3ish years of shore based training and a bit under a year at sea, was about a 4 hour epic, with some very detailed technical as well as some admin questions in front of 2 Cdrs and a LCdr (as a SLt). My post OFP head of department board, after being merit selected for the posting and a year of OJT, was a 5.5 hour board, with a Cdr NTO, Command qualified Cdr NWO and a LCdr NTO.
The NWOs have shorter oral boards, but longer OJTs for BWK, with a lot of practical requirements that have to be done at sea. They experinment with VR once in a while but then the quality of people at sea tends to be shit.
With all that, even the top performers with a fairy god father (or an Admiral relative) would absolutely struggle to get LCdr in 9 years on the initial contract as a DEO. Plus all of that would absolutely suck, as even people that love it have bad days where they want to quit.
May be the occasional unicorn, but with the key postings required for progression, and the experience they get out of them as a SLt and Lt(N), I would absolutely hate to run into someone as an XO or CO that skipped through those key postings in a race to a 2 and a half. A few bad COs and XOs have cost the RCN hundreds of qualified NCMs, with half of an entire crew of 250 VRing after one deployment, so the impact on the institution is hard to understate.