Canadian Dream (Season 2, Episode 8)
Premise: A tech founder and a delivery rider are shot in a parking lot, and the rider’s identity leads Graff and Bateman to a private college that preys on international students.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 8
- Starring
- DS Henry Graff (Aden Young), DS Frankie Bateman (Kathleen Munroe), Insp. Vivienne Holness (Karen Robinson), DCA Theo Forrester (K.C. Collins), Mark Yohannes (Araya Mengesha), Dr. Lucy Da Silva (Nicola Correia-Damude)
- Guest stars
- Kevin Liu as Brian Chen, Luis Fernandes as Mike Schaub, Daniel Kash as Det. Andy Manek
- Director
- Chloé Robichaud
- Writers
- Tassie Cameron & Rory Diamond
Summary
The Case
“Canadian Dream” centres on two deaths in an empty parking lot: tech founder Casey Lewis, there for one of his yearly 24-hour coding sessions, and a young delivery rider. With Detective Andy Manek needling them at the scene, Graff and Bateman work out from the bullet holes that the rider was the target and that Casey, lying unseen in the back of his car, was hit by a stray shot when he sat up.
The rider carries no ID. Dr. Lucy Da Silva finds broken ribs and letters written on his arm that turn out to be a licence plate, leading to a truck driver who admits hitting him days earlier but has an alibi. A pizza box leads to Mike Schaub, who rents his delivery login to international students limited to 24 hours of work a week, and names the dead man: Brian Chen, a student from Beijing. Brian’s ex-girlfriend sends the detectives to a reporter, Jennifer, who says Brian was her source on Thinkbridge, a college run by Asha Mistri that sells foreign students on a top education and a path to a visa, then delivers next to nothing. Just before her story was to run, Brian took everything back.
Asha first denies knowing Brian, then admits she turned him from whistleblower into her best recruiter, paid off the books, and she was speaking at a fundraiser when he died. Her assistant, Lucia, recalls a weeping student who tried to attack Brian: Sanjay Gupta, who died by suicide two weeks earlier. His father, Dinesh, flew in from India, and the detectives realize he is the man they bumped into at Thinkbridge; a recruitment video shows Brian selling him on the school.
The Interrogation
Forrester says a rental car outside Thinkbridge is not enough. Dinesh, meanwhile, has turned up at Asha’s home, but leaves when her small daughter comes to the door, abandoning his car. Guessing he cannot afford to take Sanjay’s ashes home, the detectives find him on the bridge over the Humber River from Sanjay’s last photo, armed. One detective talks with him about grief and fathers, tells him Brian was a Thinkbridge student before he was a recruiter, and presses him about Casey. When Dinesh threatens to shoot himself, the detective urges him to confess and testify against Asha so that his son’s story is the one told.
The ending
Spoiler: Dinesh puts down the gun, apologizes and is driven to headquarters to give his statement. Afterward one detective is reminded there is time to phone an estranged brother before processing, and answers that it can wait until tomorrow.
Suspect’s fate: Dinesh, arrested.
Why it stands out
- The case is built on student-visa rules and gig work: the dialogue cites a 24-hour weekly work limit for students and puts Thinkbridge’s take at $264 million a year from four so-called campuses.
- A detective twice mentions a half-brother he has not spoken to in four years, a thread picked up when Graff’s half-brother appears in the season finale, “Tango Romeo”.