Chretien says Canadians understand his gaffes

KITCHENER, Ontario (Reuters) -- It's only day two of the Canadian election campaign and already Prime Minister Jean Chretien has settled into a series of gaffes.

The 66-year-old prime minister often misspeaks yet tends to do it most often when he is tired, not at the start of a campaign.

Chretien faces comparisons with the relative youthfulness of his 50-year-old lead opponent, Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day, but the prime minister brushed off mistakes he makes.

"I make speeches all the time," the prime minister, who takes pride in his humble beginnings as the 18th of 19 children in a pulp-and-paper town, told reporters.

"I've never pretended to be perfect, but people, Canadians, understand very well what I want to say to them."

Addressing a crowd of farmers and other area residents earlier in the day as he opened a campaign office in St. Thomas, Ontario, he seemed to forget he was not in the House of Commons, when he said "Mr. Speaker" at the end of one of his attacks on the opposition.

In the same speech he referred to what he said was a flip-flop by the Alliance's campaign co-chairman and member of Parliament, Jason Kenney, but he referred to him as "the famous Colin Kenny."

Colin Kenny is in fact a senator from Chretien's own Liberal Party.

In a morning speech in London, Ontario, Chretien seemed to suggest that uneducated workers would not make good citizens.

Praising a scholarship fund he had introduced, he said: "If this had existed in this (earlier) time, a lot of my friends who never went to school, who went into the factories at 16, would have been great citizens."

Asked to explain later, he said: "What I was trying to say ...was that people should have a choice." And he also implied in his London speech that the last gasp of one Liberal friend might be to vote for him. He described an encounter with former member of Parliament Beryl Gaffney, who had a brain tumor but was operated on successfully at the city's renowned medical facilities.

"Now she's alive and in good shape, and I saw her at the opening of the campaign. She's still a great Grit (Liberal), and she promised she will vote early -- in the advance polls -- to make sure that she does not miss the occasion," he said to nervous laughter.

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