VANCOUVER - Liberal leadership candidate Justin Trudeau apologized Friday in Vancouver for controversial remarks he made about Alberta during a 2010 television interview in Quebec.

“I’m sorry I said what I did. I was wrong to relate the area of the country that Mr. Harper is from with the people who live there and with the policies that he has that don’t represent the values of most Canadians,” Trudeau said at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the final stop of his B.C. tour.

The apology comes after video emerged of Trudeau saying Canada is struggling because Albertans control the social agenda, and that the country would be better served with more Quebecers in power.

Trudeau said the comments were taken out of context during a lengthy interview and that Conservatives are making them an issue because “they are panicking they might lose (Monday’s) byelection in Calgary Centre.”

He dismissed any notion that his remarks may have hurt Liberal chances in Calgary.

“There is a sense that people are tired of being taken for granted by a government that is taking this country in the wrong direction,” he said. “The energy has an awful lot of Conservatives very frightened. So when they get scared, they attack.”

The French-language interview with Tele-Quebec was shot in 2010. It resurfaced just days after an Ontario Liberal MP, David McGuinty, set off a storm of controversy by saying Alberta MPs should take a nationwide view of energy policies or go home.

In the clip, Trudeau — the Liberals’ leadership front-runner — says, “Canada isn’t doing well right now because it’s Albertans who control our community and socio-democratic agenda. It doesn’t work.”

Asked if Canada is better served when there are more Quebecers in power than when there are more Albertans in power, Trudeau replied: “I’m a Liberal, so of course I believe that.”

He went on to add: “certainly when we look at the great prime ministers of the 20th century, those that really stood the test of time, they were MPs from Quebec. ... This country — Canada — it belongs to us.”

On Friday, Trudeau said the interview was focused on telling Quebecers to stop voting for the Bloc Quebecois and vote instead for a national party in the federal election.

“Obviously I hoped it would be the Liberals. It ended up not being the Liberals, but at least they engaged and showed that they were tired of not playing a role in the government of Canada.”

Conservatives are holding up the video as proof of a long-held anti-Alberta bias within the Liberal party.

ticrawford@vancouversun.com

With files from Postmedia News

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