Gadhafi is making a one-day stopover in St. John's on his way back to Libya from New York after his visit to the United Nations General Assembly, where he gave a 90-minute speech Wednesday.
"This is not an official visit to Canada," a written statement from PMO spokesman Dimitri Soudas said.
"Prime Minister [Stephen] Harper has asked Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon to go to St. John's and meet the Libyan leader," Soudas wrote.
"Minister Cannon will voice Canada's strong disapproval over the hero's welcome organized for Abdelbasset Al Maghrahi, the man responsible for the Lockerbie terrorist bombing. It constituted an insult to all the victims who died, including Canadians."
Late Thursday afternoon, Cannon told Radio-Canada reporters that that the federal government wants to make its position on Gadhafi's visit clear.
"The incidents that took place years ago had Canadians losing their lives," he said. " In no way shape or form does this government support terrorism, and we denounce it at every opportunity and that's what we will be doing."
Newfoundland and Labrador government officials say no one from the province will welcome Gadhafi.
"We don't have any comment, and no provincial officials will be meeting with him," an official in Premier Danny Williams's office told CBC News on Thursday.
St. John's Mayor Dennis O'Keefe says he has no plans to meet with Gadhafi either, but he says Libya's leader won't be alone while he's in Newfoundland.
O'Keefe says he's heard that Gadhafi will be in the city with a delegation of 130 people.
"They are going to be dispersed around different hotels, and Col. Gadhafi would be looking for a separate site on which he wants to pi...