For a long time, there has been much confusion regarding whether one is required to reside in the province where they applied for immigration after successfully obtaining a Maple Leaf Card.
Some believe that the Canadian Constitution grants every citizen and resident the right to freedom of movement. Therefore, one can go wherever they wish without any restrictions. The best example is the Quebec Immigrant Investor Program, where most applicants have moved to Vancouver and Toronto. Others tend to believe that it is safer for Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) immigrants to reside in the nominating province until they obtain citizenship before moving to another province. The reason for this concern is the potential impact on future permanent resident card renewals and the possibility that the nominating province might request the revocation of permanent resident status. The best example is the Prince Edward Island immigration program, which requires a residency deposit.
So, what is the truth?
Section 6 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states the following:
Mobility of Citizens (1) Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada.
Rights to move and gain livelihood (2) Every citizen of Canada and every person who has the status of a permanent resident of Canada has the right:
to move to and take up residence in any province; and
to pursue the gaining of a livelihood in any province.
Limitation (3) The rights specified in subsection (2) are subject to:
any laws or practices of general application in force in a province other than those that discriminate primarily on the basis of province of present or previous residence; and
any laws providing for reasonable residency requirements as a qualification for the receipt of publicly provided social services.
Affirmative action programs (4) Subsections (2) and (3) do not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration in a province of conditions of individuals in that province who are socially or economically disadvantaged if the rate of employment in that province is below the rate of employment in Canada.
According to constitutional rights, Canadian permanent residents (Maple Leaf Card holders) have the right to free movement and residence. This is confirmed on the official IRCC website: "As a permanent resident, you have the right to live, work or study anywhere in Canada."
However, the official website's explanation does not stop there; it adds: "However, if you became a permanent resident through the Provincial Nominee Program, the province that nominated you has chosen you to bring skills to their province."
Therefore, as you can see, the latter sentence is expressed very tactfully. First, it uses the transitional word "However," meaning that the following content contradicts the preceding statement. In particular, the final phrase, "the province that nominated you has chosen you to bring skills to their province," is expressed very implicitly, without mentioning any legal terms such as "right" or "duty." Therefore, it can be considered a request from the IRCC to PNP applicants, rather than a requirement.
Looking at the evolution of the Canadian immigration application system, in order to reverse the trend of all new immigrants flocking to areas like Vancouver and Toronto, the Canadian immigration authorities adopted a new Provincial Nominee Program system. Through this new system, applicants confirm their willingness to settle in the province at the beginning of the immigration application, and permanent resident status is granted based on this premise, with the hope of resolving regional development imbalances.
Most new immigrants have been relatively compliant in residing in their nominating province. The number of immigrants in Saskatchewan and Quebec has risen sharply in the last two or three years, and Prince Edward Island has also kept many applicants on the island for at least one year through the use of residency deposits. As for whether new immigrants move to other provinces after one year of landing, this is actually outside the scope of the Provincial Nominee Program's constraints.
In fact, regarding the issue of whether new immigrants can freely choose their place of residence, the federal immigration authorities would very much like to restrict the behavior of new immigrants in choosing their place of residence. The best way to restrict this would be to specify a residency period, and if it is not met, revoke their permanent resident status directly.
However, unfortunately, Canadian law does not grant the immigration authorities this power, and it is impossible for any department in Canada to grant this power to the immigration authorities by amending the law. Therefore, when answering this question, the federal immigration authorities first clarified the rights enjoyed by permanent residents, and on this basis, made a very tactful request, asking new immigrants to contribute their skills to the nominating province.
Therefore, applicants from China can fulfill the residency and contribution requirements of the nominating province from a moral standpoint; the reason applicants are able to obtain a Maple Leaf Card is inseparable from the province's selection of you.
In addition, there is another situation: if, during the process of applying for a provincial nomination, the applicant has signed an agreement with the provincial immigration office, or signed a statement in a fixed format to express their intention to reside in that province, then you must check carefully whether there are any liabilities for breach of contract in that agreement or statement.
In other words, if there is a clear definition of the responsibilities to be borne for violating residency conditions, and once there is a clear definition stating that permanent resident status will be revoked, then the provincial immigration office can use this to request the revocation of status on a case-by-case basis.
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