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Michaud said he had made the comment to Liberal Party Sen. Leo Kolber, a Jew, who recently asked Michaud if he is still a separatist.

A member of Quebec's governing separatist Parti Quebecois, Michaud is a candidate in the culturally diverse Montreal district of Mercier in upcoming elections for the provincial legislature.

"I am a separatist like you are a Jew," Michaud said he told Kolber. "It took 2,000 years for your people to have a Jewish homeland. If it takes me 10, 50 or 200 more, I can wait."

Kolber responded that it wasn't the same, Michaud told talk-show host Paul Arcand.

"It's never the same for them. The Armenians didn't suffer. The Palestinians aren't suffering. The Rwandans didn't suffer," Michaud said sarcastically.

Quebec's premier criticized Michaud. "No democracy has room for those kinds of comments, when we understand that genocide negates the very notion of humanity," Lucien Bouchard said Tuesday.