In Twin Peaks: The Return, the evils of empire bubble up in ways that are peculiar and scary, but which always point irrevocably toward a sense of decline. In many ways, the season is a lament for American imperialism, and the pile of victims it has accrued on its single-minded drive toward the annihilation of its enemies, which will ultimately lead to the annihilation of itself.

Imperialism is not only instantiated in military force and unilateral sanctions deployed to influence the sovereign political and economic affairs of a state for the benefit of an external one. Imperialism is manifest in the everyday organizing principles of the entire global economy, of which states in the Global North (including Canada) have inaugurated themselves as the rulers.

The nationalization of the Kumtor gold mine has made Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov powerful enemies within Centerra and the Canadian government, which continue their legal attacks on the country while Japarov increases his presidential powers. As the optimistic January 2022 deadline approaches, there is little indication the hostility that has characterized the Kumtor negotiations will subside in the coming weeks.

The United Nations vote to confirm the credentials of Venezuelan diplomats representing the government of President Nicolás Maduro, coupled with the recent report by the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights condemning Colombian state violence, reveals the hollowness of Canadian foreign policy in Latin America and gives the lie to Canada’s contention that the “Maduro regime” is a global pariah and a rogue state.

After more than a decade of right-wing rule by the strongly US-backed National Party, which retained power through a series of elections riddled with fraud, Xiomara Castro’s victory represents a new and hopeful chapter in the history of a country marred by imperialistic interference from the United States and its allies—namely Canada.

The extraction of Canadian radium by Eldorado Gold Mines Ltd. (later Eldorado Mining & Refining Ltd.) began with the exploitation of Dene land and labour on the coasts of Great Bear Lake and saw its calamitous fruition in the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a still misunderstood act of barbarism that was only made possible with massive supplies of Canadian resources.

Extractive exports represent around 40 percent of the Dominican Republic’s total export revenue. The two largest extractive operations remain the Canadian-owned Falcondo holdings and the majority Canadian-owned Pueblo Viejo mine. As protests around Pueblo Viejo intensify, it is no wonder that the Canadian government remains silent, allowing Barrick and the Dominican government to dominate the narrative.

Several influential countries, including Canada, continue to recognize the self-declared president Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate authority. Furthermore, the Lima Group still exists, albeit in increasingly attenuated form. All of this begs the question: why is Canada still humiliating itself on the world stage by persisting in its regime change efforts against Venezuela?

As the legal battle over the Kumtor gold mine rages on, Centerra’s legal options for extending its management of the mine look more limited by the day. Any Canadian who is interested in how their country’s capital functions on the global stage, and how affected countries are trying to resist this neocolonial domination, should eagerly follow new developments in the case.

It is well past time to stop thinking of homelessness, drug addiction, and related domestic crises as outgrowths of individualized pathologies or mental illness—they are actually the result of what professor Anthony Zenkus calls “community illness,” which can also be described as the adverse mental health impact of the systemic violence engendered by Canada’s colonial-capitalist culture.