Speaking of Freud’s narcissism of minor differences, certain people in Burnaby, east of Vancouver, think certain other people don’t fit in. With them, that is. If this were a local matter confined to toxic former Liberal candidate Karen Wang, fine. But if it’s a sign of self-generated ethnic split in a multicultural nation, it is bad news indeed.

I can’t find the right metaphor for how multiculturalism works. Maybe it’s a multi-layered cake and each province is sliced according to population. But no, there shouldn’t be layers at all. Perhaps a bricklaying analogy would assist, what with bricks being identical and laid with the tidy Dutch-style grouting I favour.

But none of this explains how Wang messed up.

Being biracial makes me a reasonably good referee. As a walking ethnic quarrel myself, I tend to blame both sides. My Scottish side is at odds with my Indian side, usually when I’m buying a winter coat I don’t need and can’t afford (just buy it, says the Indian dad element) and when I’m eating delicious restaurant food.

And why should food be delicious, the Scottish mum element hectors. Food is gasoline for the engine, nothing more. Why go to La Paella when you could cook at home for a tenth of the price? (Because I don’t know how to cook paella, I say faintly. Because I am a tight-fisted sybarite. Because I will one day die.)

I’m surprised that a candidate as socially awkward as Wang was chosen to run in Burnaby South in the first place. She dug herself a hole and keeps digging, disgracing herself in her determination to become an MP, whether as a party candidate, an independent or an Edible Arrangement.

The Star’s alert Vancouver bureau discovered that Wang had said on WeChat, a Chinese social media platform, that she would win as “the only ethnic Chinese candidate” (hua yi) in the riding because NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is “of Indian descent” (yin yi).

This implied that voters of Chinese origin would rather hold their breath and turn blue than vote for anyone with darker skin. Worse, she called herself “Chinese” rather than “Chinese-Canadian,” when multiculturalism is one of the most basic elements in Prime Minister Trudeau’s version of Liberalism.

This situation/apparition pops up often. Can’t groups of Canadians focus on what they have in common — the rule of law, Chinese food as great as Indian food, kayaking, Canadian Tire — rather than the tiny things that differentiate them? No? In the U.S., the answer is no with an AK-47.

But Canada is so baked-in multicultural that people don’t have the option of not getting along. It works beautifully in the big cities, less well in white-enclave rural Canada, and very badly, it turns out, in suburban ethnic enclaves.

The Liberals had a chat with Wang — presumably brief, frigidly polite and no tea and biscuits on offer — and she quickly resigned while digging in even deeper by blaming an intern and then saying she had been referring to Singh’s “culture” rather than his race.

There is no single culture in India. She didn’t say “Hindus are fine,” she just assumed that any Indo-Canadian candidate would repel her ethnic base, which in her riding is large. Wang says it’s normal to point out one’s background in Chinese media — I’m told this is untrue — but what about other people’s?

Her campaign photos show Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen helping out on her campaign, as well as her chatting with Indo-Canadians. So that’s one great big wicker basket of offended people.

Then Wang recanted her resignation — good luck with that — saying “of Indian descent” is merely a statement of fact. That’s a frequent claim made by racists in Alabama but it doesn’t wash here.

I have written before about a Markham, Ont. demonstration in 2016, with some Chinese-Canadians protesting asylum seekers crossing the U.S. border into Canada. There were speeches in Chinese and chants of “go home go home go home.” One protest petition said of the asylum seekers that “75 per cent of them are from Nigeria.”

Younger, more aware Chinese-Canadians seeing the disaster unfold, leapt to the rescue of the locals’ reputation, held up signs and chanted “No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here.”

But the damage was done. From No Dogs, No Chinese to No Indians to No Nigerians, how could anyone miss the irony of new Canadians turning on each other? In the U.K., it’s No Poles, No Migrants, No Leylandii Hedges. In the U.S., it’s just No.

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Wang should have known better. Her grandparents suffered terribly during the Cultural Revolution, when communist gangs turned on individuals who seemed different: too wealthy, too well-known or — perhaps — too Jagmeet Singh.

Wang has lived in Canada for 30 years, long enough to understand Canadian silence on certain subjects: money, race, religion. “And where do you worship?” I don’t ask people at parties.

Does Wang understand the depth of her insult to Canada?

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