A number of Alberta politicians were distancing themselves from a chant that broke out from a crowd gathered at a weekend rally, held on the steps of the legislature.

The rally was organized by the Rebel Media Group, and attracted hundreds who oppose the carbon tax, which is set to go into effect in 2017.

At one point during the rally, the crowd could be heard chanting “lock her up”.

On Monday, a number of politicians were quick to respond.

“My first reaction is: ‘that’s not the Alberta I know’,” MLA Margaret McCuaig-Boyd said. “If you look at the number of people there, I hope that doesn’t represent Alberta.”

“It’s that kind of language that I don’t think is productive or helpful,” MLA Deron Bilous said.

Interim PC Leader Ric McIver was invited to the rally, but didn’t attend – he called the chant offensive.

“If I got arrested and locked up every time someone disagreed with me, I would never be in this building,” McIver said.

The chant started while federal Conservative leadership candidate Chris Alexander spoke at the rally.

“I don’t think it’s up to us, politicians or media, to chastise a crowd who is saying something spontaneously on the basis of real emotion,” Alexander said. “That anger is real, I think we’ve got to stop lecturing people on how they should feel and what they should say and start listening to them.”

In addition to the chanting, a home-made homophobic sign could be seen at the rally.

One politician who attended the rally, Wildrose Party leader Brian Jean, said he didn’t see the sign, and left before the chanting started.

“The one sign in relation to homophobia, there is no place for that in this type of events, and the vast majority of Albertans at the event, I don’t think they have those same thoughts either,” Jean said.

Outside of Alberta, reaction to the chant at the rally also came from Ottawa Monday, where interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose told reporters in the House of Commons that the chant was “not only unoriginal [but] completely inappropriate”, she said: “People were acting like idiots”.

“We don’t lock people up in Canada for bad policy, we vote them out, that is how we live in a democracy,” Ambrose said.

With files from Matt Woodman