Dikshit Soni, RCIC

RCIC @ SAAB Immigration | In the industry since 2012
Tech enthusiast, lifelong learner, problem-solver
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[Dikshit Soni, RCIC @dikshitsoni]

Massive fire in Kitchener Huron South.

Multiple townhomes gutted

[Dikshit Soni, RCIC @dikshitsoni]

Similar incidents, twice in 2 weeks. Horrific

[CP24 @CP24]

Woman arrested after infant found dead inside Brampton home https://t.co/zzijRLso7b

[Dikshit Soni, RCIC @dikshitsoni]

🧵 5/5 And yet somehow, a policy competitiveness debate has morphed into a community vs community narrative. A victimhood movement. When did that happen? And more importantly, why?

Because the actual ask has never been clearly defined. And the one formal attempt that was made has already been closed.

Petition e-4454 was presented in the House of Commons in March 2024 by MP Ruby Sahota of Brampton North. 24,349 signatures. A formal ask for PGWP extensions. The government responded, signed off by Parliamentary Secretary Paul Chiang, and effectively declined. IRCC then moved in the opposite direction, tightening PGWP eligibility further from May 2024.

Here is what people need to understand about how this works:

A petition in Canada carries no legislative force. It is a formal request. The government is obligated to respond within 45 days. That response can simply be no. And it was.

An MP presenting a petition to show their community "I am with you" is politics. It is not legislation.

Law gets made through a bill. A Private Member's Bill requires an MP to sponsor it, survive multiple readings in the House, committee study, the Senate, and Royal Assent. Nobody has attempted that here. And with Canadian public opinion on immigration levels having shifted dramatically against further concessions, the political appetite for any MP to stake their career on this is essentially zero.

The noise on the ground, the encampments, the social media campaigns, the protests, it creates the appearance of momentum. It will not move parliament. The petition was the formal mechanism. It was used. It was declined. The government answered and walked the other way.

So what is the actual endgame?

- PR for everyone who came on a study permit? On what criteria? What distinguishes one applicant from another in that ask?

- Work permit extensions for everyone? For how long? For which cohorts? What happens to the cohort that falls one day outside the policy line? Do they protest next?

- Amnesty or Humanitarian and Compassionate based PR for everyone? Where does the threshold start? Where does it end? Who qualifies? What about those already out of status or non-compliant with IRPA? What about those outside the CEC window, no longer able to claim 1 year of experience in the preceding 3 years?

- Is the ask a targeted work permit bridge exclusively for candidates whose PNP files were in active processing, lapsed through no fault of their own due to processing delays, and were refused abruptly with no contingency window? That is a defined, sympathetic, legally defensible group. If that is the ask, make it precisely and exclusively that.

- Is the ask fresh PGWP eligibility for those willing to return to legitimate university level study in Canada? Bachelors or masters at a recognized institution. Real credentials. Real CRS improvement. Real pathway. If that is the ask, make it clearly and push it properly through an MP willing to sponsor it.

- Is the ask stronger filters on francophone draws so language proficiency is paired with occupational relevance and wage thresholds, redirecting slots toward CEC candidates who have already demonstrated economic integration? That is a technical, defensible policy argument that could find sympathetic ears across party lines.

NOBODY has put a real proposal on the table. What started as a legitimate grievance has morphed into something community driven, emotionally charged, and increasingly detached from any realistic legislative outcome.

And that is the real tragedy here. Because there are people in this who have genuinely been wronged. Files refused after years of processing. Work permits lapsed through no fault of their own. Real human cost behind real policy failures. Those people deserve real advocacy, not a movement that has never defined what it is actually asking for.

There is a visible pivot happening toward amnesty, compassionate grounds, community victimization, and blame shifting, without ever identifying or acknowledging the core problem. The belief that the government artificially raised the cut off is the most telling example of this. It did not. The system was always competitive. The competition changed. That fundamental misunderstanding of how Express Entry works is driving the entire narrative.

That is a Hail Mary built on a flawed premise. If it fails, the damage to the international student pathway will outlast this movement entirely.

The problem is real. The failures are documented. But a real problem needs a precise ask and a realistic path to get there. Without that, the noise continues, the legitimate cases are lost in that noise, and the people who actually needed help end up with nothing.

It did not have to go this way.

#CanadaImmigration #ExpressEntry #PGWP

[Dikshit Soni, RCIC @dikshitsoni]

🧵 1/5 There is a narrative circulating that goes: International students were vetted by the Canadian government, therefore they deserve PR.

This conflates two completely different legal standards and two completely different vetting processes.

When you applied for a study permit, the single most common refusal ground was this: "I am not satisfied that you will leave Canada at the end of your authorized stay."

To overcome that, every applicant who got approved, demonstrated strong ties to their home country, financial stability, and genuine intent to return. That is the legal foundation of temporary residence. You didn't just agree to it. You argued for it. You submitted documents proving it.

The vetting for a temporary stay asks: are you a genuine visitor or a bonafide student who will leave?

The vetting for PR asks: do you have the human capital, skills, language proficiency, and economic profile to contribute to Canada long term?

These are not the same question. They were never the same question. Implied does not mean committed. A pathway is not a guarantee. The study permit route created the possibility of PR through Canadian experience and CRS accumulation. In its core, tt was never a promise delivered to everyone who arrived.

#CanadaImmigration #ExpressEntry #PGWP

[Dikshit Soni, RCIC @dikshitsoni]

🧵 4/5 Now, to be clear, there were genuine casualties. PNP streams like OINP's Express Entry Linked Skilled Trades stream provided a pathway for many at CRS scores below 400. Those streams closed or tightened abruptly. Files sitting in processing for 2 years, work permits expiring mid-process, refusals arriving with no time to prepare.

I had a client whose file was in process since September 2023, refused in October 2025 just as her work permit lapsed. She had been compliant, working, waiting. That was wrong. Those specific cases warranted a targeted work permit bridge. That was a legitimate failure and I have said so.

But that is a precise, defined group with a precise, defined problem. It is not everyone. And it cannot be the basis for a blanket ask covering every profile in every situation.

[Tamara Mosher-Kuczer @TTRRMK]

Hundreds of migrant workers win class action against Mac's Convenience, immigration consultants https://t.co/Ut0SLhD2fd

[Dikshit Soni, RCIC @dikshitsoni]

Jo hoyega dekhega jayega means “whatever happens, we’ll deal with it then” or more loosely “we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

In current context, it’s indifference to consequences, especially when this situation arose as a result of no planning or no foresight in the first place.

[Dikshit Soni, RCIC @dikshitsoni]

1/11 The PGWP lobby has been running for close to 2 years. Protests, encampments, petitions, social media campaigns in various forms and flavours.

As an RCIC representing thousands of clients across multiple countries including my own community, as a Punjabi, I want to address what this lobby is actually asking for, whether it is achievable, and why the approach itself is doing serious damage to the very people it claims to represent.

And why the moment I raise any of this publicly, the conversation collapses into abuse, threats, and intimidation, rather than a single counter-argument on substance.

This is that thread. 🧵

[Dikshit Soni, RCIC @dikshitsoni]

11/11 Let's ask the question nobody in this movement has answered clearly: what is the actual endgame?

PR for everyone?
Work permits for everyone? For how long? For which cohorts? What happens to the cohort that falls one day outside the policy line? Do they protest next? Who decides where the line gets drawn, and on what basis?

Two years in, there is no coherent policy ask that has a realistic path to implementation. Petition e-4454 was tabled, debated, and declined. The government responded by tightening eligibility further. The organizations backing this movement have never had a serious public conversation about what success actually looks like, what the precedent is, or what happens when the next round of extensions runs out.

Nearly 114,000 ITAs were issued through Express Entry in 2025 alone. Those people didn't wait for a movement to save them. They assessed their profiles honestly, identified gaps, adapted, and moved forward.

The policy failures were real. The institutions' complicity is documented. The anger has a legitimate foundation and I have never disputed that. But anger without a coherent strategy is not advocacy, it is just noise. And two years of noise, while CRS reforms advance, IRPA non-compliance accumulates quietly, and reputational damage compounds, is not a plan. It is harm delivered to the very community it claims to protect.

The Conestoga evidence exists. Use it at the table for real negotiation. Introspect. Acknowledge. Adapt. Build profiles the evolving system actually rewards.

"Jo hoyega dekheya jayega" was never a strategy. The consequences are no longer theoretical. They are already on the record.

Every threat, every abusive comment, every coordinated pile-on under a fake name, it doesn't stay anonymous. It stays associated with the movement. And the movement stays associated with every single person in it. That is how this works.

[Dikshit Soni, RCIC @dikshitsoni]

10/11 Now look at this carefully. This question appears on every Canadian immigration form. Every single one.

Everything posted online is a permanent record. Timestamped and searchable.

@CitImmCanada enforcement is at its strictest in the history of the program. CBSA watches. Courts watch. Immigration adjudicators have access to open-source information and act on it.

If an organization operating under the guise of advocacy gets named, sanctioned, or banned following violent activity, every person publicly associated with it faces that question on EVERY future application.

Spousal sponsorships. Citizenship. Travel documents. Study permits for children. Forever.

Social media traction feels like momentum. Political statements of sympathy feel like progress. At the end of it, it's deflection. Politicians have to be politically correct, issue carefully worded responses, and move on.

The likes don't convert to policy. The association with an organization that crossed a legal or ethical line converts permanently, into permanent immigration records in GCMS.

Mind you, this is not lobbying. This is gambling with the futures of the most vulnerable people in the room.