What they demonstrated on the SINP application is just their intention to live in SK. However, intention is just intention, You can not call it a lie
To badly paraphrase the shortest short story ever published, by a vastly under-appreciated author (with my apologies for butchering the actual story):
"You can imagine how hard it is to live in a tiny apartment with a man who plays the trumpet without rest," she said handing an officer the gun.
Intent is a fact.
A statement of fact, if material and not true, is a material misrepresentation and as such will be grounds for the consequences imposed under IRPA for misrepresentation and potentially a basis for criminal prosecution.
There is no doubt, lying about one's intentions is misrepresentation. It is a misstatement of fact.
It appears that like many others you confuse the difficulty of proving intent based on subsequent acts contrary to a prior declaration of intent, versus what can otherwise constitute sufficient evidence of intent contrary to the intent a person has declared.
Leading me back to Brautigan's super-short story and the well-worn trail of convictions based on the proverbial
smoking-gun. Rarely works for the person who pulled the trigger, who is holding the
smoking-gun, to protest "
I did not mean to kill him." A dead body and the
smoking-gun in hand is generally enough evidence to prove intent otherwise.
And there is all sorts of potential evidence which could show that a person's intent was to take a job in Ontario BEFORE landing and becoming a PR, if in fact the person did have an intent to take a job in Ontario before landing.
If indeed a new immigrant pursuant to a provincial nominee or sponsorship arrives in Canada and
THEN changes his or her mind, and then takes a job in a different province, that does not change what the individual's intent was prior to and during the process of becoming a PR. Thus it is true that the mere fact a provincial nominee takes a job in a different province does not prove he or she lied about his or her intent.
BUT such circumstances might trigger questions, concerns, suspicions, leading to inquiries and an investigation. I have not seen many reports of this, but the possibility looms real, and the OP's situation suggests that perhaps there is more attention being focused on this now than before.
If there is an investigation, all it would take is evidence of an application to an employer in Ontario, a job offer, and an acceptance of the job, all of which might be evidenced by little more than an agreed upon start date, to show an intent to take a job in Ontario. Thus, if this is dated BEFORE the landing formalities, that could be the
smoking-gun which proves fraudulent intent.
Just one example among many potential sources of evidence which might show what a person's actual intent was
before arriving in Canada.
I have the impression that
playing games is, perhaps, more common if not widespread, and considered more acceptable by more than a few, than I have previously apprehended. I suspect, however, for all those who get away with it, there are scores who do not. And just as it goes in life generally, some are more adept at
playing games than others, and those who follow in their footsteps do so at their peril.