Blaming an abundance of enthusiasm, Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe apologized for a comment he made yesterday about wanting the federal Liberals to disappear from Quebec.

In a fiery speech near Montreal on Sunday, Duceppe said the sovereigntist Bloc will win all of Quebec's 75 ridings, effectively making the Liberals disappear from the political landscape -- a comment which a Liberal cabinet minister said was Nazi-like in tone.

Duceppe said Monday he only meant that he wanted his party to win every riding in Quebec in the Jan. 23 election.

Meeting with different cultural communities in an attempt to court the ethnic vote, Duceppe stressed that a multiplicity of parties is beneficial for democracy, and condemned the Liberals for comparing the Holocaust to an election campaign.

Duceppe added that he wanted Liberal Quebec lieutenant Jean Lapierre to apologize for making the Nazi reference.

The Liberals, however, continued to pounce on Duceppe's comment Monday.

Liberal foreign minister Pierre Pettigrew said Duceppe's remarks are an indication of his intolerance attitudes.

"He cannot tolerate people who think differently. He's been trying to shut up the strong Quebec voices in Ottawa in order to promote his separation plans," Pettigrew told CTV Montreal from the UN conference for climate change.

Liberal Leader Paul Martin, meanwhile, said Duceppe's comments demonstrate a "narrowness of mind and an arrogance that is simply unacceptable."

"Essentially, what they're saying is if you don't share the separatist option, then we don't believe that you belong in contemporary Quebec."

The Bloc currently holds 54 of Quebec's 75 seats. And the latest opinion poll shows the party is enjoying a 30-point lead in opinion polls over the Liberals.

Aside from targeting a more ethnically diverse vote, the Bloc is focusing on ridings it came close to winning in the 2004 election. It has also budgeted an additional $50,000 to get the support of women voters and the elderly, who tend to vote in fewer numbers.