Liberal Leader Susan Holt is defending herself from criticism over her comments that people in the Bathurst area are "totally different" from the "highly educated" residents where she lives in Fredericton.

Holt made the comments on a podcast interview earlier this year, and Progressive Conservative candidates in northern New Brunswick have seized on them.

"I'm in urban Fredericton," Holt said. "It's really progressive people here, highly educated. My riding of Bathurst East-Nepisiguit-Saint-Isido…