Alberta Premier Ralph Klein tried to clarify recent remarks about a 1973 coup in Chile, but he stopped short of offering an apology that some Chilean-Canadians had requested.
About 70 people protested on the steps of the legislature in Edmonton on Monday. Many had relatives who were killed or tortured under the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
"I am aware that the mere mention of the name Pinochet can resurrect great sorrow," Klein said Monday. "For that reason I will endeavour to be more appreciative of those concerns."
"My comments last week were not meant in any way to express personal support or admiration for the Pinochet regime -- quite the contrary ... My only purpose for making those remarks was to point out that socialism can often lead to unintended repercussions to society. Unfortunately, that's what happened in Chile."
Klein made his comments last week in the legislature, during a discussion of an opposition suggestion that the government launch public auto insurance.
Klein compared the scenario to what happened when Salvador Allende, the world's first democratically elected socialist leader, nationalized the country's copper mines.
Klein said: "Pinochet came in, Mr. Speaker, and I'm not saying that Pinochet was any better, but because of the only elected communist in Chile, Allende, and the socialist reforms he put in, Pinochet was forced, I would say, to mount a coup."
He went on to say that, "as a dictator (Pinochet) was no better than Allende."
Allende was killed in a military coup staged by Pinochet in 1973. The general then ordered many of the purges that saw more than 3,000 supporters of the Allende regime killed.
Pinochet was arrested in 1998 while in London, and eventually extradited to Chile to stand trial for murder. Those charges were later suspended, when a Chilean court found him too ill to stand trial.
Opposition leader Kevin Taft said MLAs were baffled by Klein's comment. "I don't know what connection was going on in his brain, it was just so bizarre it just left people shaking their heads."
Chilean-Canadians, many of whom lived through the Pinochet regime, said Klein's reference to a dictator was offensive.
"Hopefully he will come to his senses, realize he make a mistake and issue a sincere apology," Leo Campos told CFRN-TV.
