You would not find much of a black and white answer to this question. I will try to answer this question by being a Licensed Immigration Consultant and being a PNP nominee myself while pursuing my PR route. Therefore, I will share my personal experience as well as the legal arguments. However, by this article I am NOT encouraging anyone to just come as a PNP nominee and move out from the province either sooner or later. Please accept or deny my reasonings and suggestions at your own risk.

My personal experience:

I came to Canada in 2016 as a Permanent Resident under Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program (SINP). Due to the undertaking of the intention to reside in Saskatchewan, I landed in Saskatchewan. Please note that I used to be a IT professional back then and my NOC was “2171 – Information systems analysts and consultants” in both SINP and EE profiles . So, after I landed in Saskatchewan, I tried my level best to find a decent job in my discipline. I tried for 6+ months but there was no luck and the money I brought with me as a settlement fund (as we promised in the Express Entry profile) was running out.   

I really had to think about moving out of the province to try my luck with the hope that I might be able to find something better somewhere else. Just to make sure that I won’t be jeopardizing my permanent residency ship, I wrote an email to SINP office explaining the hurdles I went through and all the efforts I made to make Saskatchewan home. In a word, I explained and provided all the evidence to prove that I left no stone unturned to get settled in Saskatchewan. I have shared about the jobs I applied for, the denial emails I have received, the mentorship program I went through etc. Below is the exact reply I have received from SINP office.

Good morning,

As a Permanent Resident of Canada, you may work and live in any province, however, an individual is nominated to Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee program based on their intent to settle permanently in Saskatchewan.  Should a Nominee not be living and working in Saskatchewan the SINP reserves the right to follow up to assess whether the Nominee has misrepresented their intent.  The SINP can revoke a nomination to our program and advise Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) of the revocation.  Any final decisions are in the hands of IRCC.

Kind regards,
AR – Customer Service Officer
Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program (SINP)
Government of Saskatchewan
Labour Market Development, Ministry of the Economy

Not sure how you interpret the above email response, but I had mixed feelings. I mean they did not want to hold me back but did not give me a full clearance either. So, I narrowed down the email into the below two parts:

·        As a Permanent Resident of Canada, you may work and live in any province.

·        SINP reserves the right to follow up to assess whether the Nominee has misrepresented their intent.

That means I am allowed to move out so long I haven’t misrepresented my intent to live in Saskatchewan. After this email, I started packing my bags and moved out in that month.

Legal arguments:

Let’s look at “Rights to move and gain livelihood” under the Mobility Rights of a Citizen and PR which is described in the subsection of 6(2) of CONSTITUTION ACT, 1982.

The above subsection is more than sufficient to say YES, you can move out of the province you have received nomination from as soon as you become a permanent resident of Canada. There cannot be any provincial law above the Constitution Act. In other words, no province can come up with a law which can prevent its residents from leaving the province by any means. However, I would like to reiterate firmly one more time that “misrepresentation” might cause you terrible consequences. Therefore, you must not just pass a few days / weeks and then leave whenever you feel like to. I would also like to share that I have come across two cases where the PNP applicants received Procedural Fairness Letter during their Citizenship application as they left their host province within very short time and were unable to prove their intention to reside in that province.

To conclude with, I would like to express my deepest gratefulness to the SINP program of Saskatchewan. Had they not nominated me, I would not be where I am now. No matter wherever I go, I call Saskatchewan my first home in Canada which won’t change ever.     

Disclaimer: The above writing is not intended to be a source of legal advice. Please seek legal advice and use your own good judgement before choosing to act on any information provided above. If you choose to rely on this article, you do so entirely at your own risk.