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‘It was not nice. It was unacceptable, really unacceptable. And there’s no way it would have happened under my leadership’

That void, and public suspicion in those provinces due to his rhetoric, would sabotage a Mulcair government’s political efforts to sell even legitimate economic and environmental policies, he said.

“If you are elected by hammering a region and playing identity politics with issues like the oil sands, then in fact if you come after with a sound policy, the fact that people would be so suspicious about everything you do, it would make the success of your policy so much more difficult.”

Mr. Dion confirmed in the interview Monday that he was advised to campaign on a claim that, despite the environmental damage caused by the oil sands, Mr. Harper was favouring Alberta over Ontario.

“It was not nice. It was unacceptable, really unacceptable. And there’s no way it would have happened under my leadership.”

A Liberal source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, had a somewhat different recollection. He said there was never a full-blown plan, only some “brainstorming” among campaign organizers about how the Liberals might be able to replicate the success that year of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, who was getting mileage by attacking the oil industry and its close ties to the Republican Party.

“But it didn’t go anywhere because Dion immediately shot it down,” the Liberal said.

In an email Mr. Dion wrote recounting the episode, he said that the advice ran counter to his character.