EDMONTON -- About 50 people gathered at the Alberta legislature in Edmonton Sunday night to light candles of remembrance and protest the death of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike on Thursday.

The crowd chanted “no war on Iran” and “End Canadian complicity.”

“We should all, as human beings, condemn the recent attacks that have happened,” said Masoud Shadnam, a professor at MacEwan University who spoke at the event.

The killing of Soleimani is proving controversial, even in Canada. On Friday, dozens of Iranian-Canadians gathered in Toronto to celebrate the death of the man the U.S. considered a terrorist.

An American airstrike authorized by President Donald Trump killed Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds Force, in Baghdad, Iraq. Iran's supreme leader vowed a "harsh retaliation."

Sunday night, two Iranian-Canadian men argued with the pro-Soleimani crowd gathered in Edmonton as Alberta Sheriffs watched from the front doors of the Legislature.

Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne has called on all sides to "exercise restraint and pursue de-escalation," but stopped short of condemning the attack.

"Canada has long been concerned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, led by Qasem (sic) Soleimani, whose aggressive actions have had a destabilizing effect in the region and beyond," Champagne said in the release on Friday.

On Sunday, Shadnam disagreed with Canada’s stance on Soleimani and the force he commanded.

“Millions of people have been saved by this commander and this entity, this force, from the hands of ISIS and Al-Qaeda and the likes of those terrorists,” Shadnam said.

“So we know them as heroes actually and we demand that the Canadian government delist this organization from the terrorist organization (list).”

Since the airstrike, Iran has vowed "harsh retaliation" against the U.S. for what Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has called a "heinous crime."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has yet to comment on the dispute.

With files from Rachel Gilmore and The Associated Press