Based on some other posts on this forum where people have had discussions with CBSA get the impression that their interpretation of non essential travel would be if some told them they were in effect doing a soft landing which is the OPs plan.
If someone was heading for Canada on a one way trip that would be fine given that ultimately is the whole reason for immigrating to Canada and there are veryfew exemptions currently for crossing back and forth the US/Canada border being a new immigrant is not necessarily one of them unless one way.
Soft landings in the current emergency are it seems frowned upon by CBSA and even possibly US CBP for the return although as everyone knows with CBSA/IRCC different agents sometimes are not consistent with a response
The critical thing still remains the 14 day isolation .
Yeah I guess it is the "settle permanently" versus "soft landing" that is perhaps the reason for the differing messages.