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Stéphane Dion emerged from his stunning convention victory with early signs that his win places the party ahead of the governing Conservatives for the first time since the Liberals' election defeat in January.

The Liberals have moved six percentage points ahead of Stephen Harper's Tories, while a sizable majority of Quebeckers say the Liberals made a good choice, according to the survey conducted by the Strategic Counsel for The Globe and Mail and CTV.

The poll was taken in the hours after the dramatic convention, where Mr. Dion, teaming up in an alliance with fellow candidate Gerard Kennedy, surged past front-runner Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae to claim the Liberal crown.

It shows that if an election were held today, the Liberals led by Mr. Dion would garner 37 per cent of the vote, compared with 31 per cent for the Conservatives. The NDP polled 14 per cent, the Bloc Québécois 11 per cent, and the Green Party 7.

Liberal support in the poll is up five percentage points from a Strategic Counsel survey in October. Most of the gain came in Ontario, at the expense of the NDP and the Green Party.

And in a reaction that defies the conventional wisdom of Quebec pundits, 62 per cent of respondents in the province said that Mr. Dion was a good choice for the Liberals, with only 29 per cent saying he was a bad choice. The approval of the Liberals' pick was higher in Quebec than in the rest of the country, where 55 per cent liked the choice.

Still, as the new leader of the opposition, Mr. Dion now faces a series of challenges.

On Wednesday, his first day as Leader in the House of Commons, he will have to tackle potential dissent in his caucus, when MPs vote on reopening the same-sex marriage debate. Mr. Dion refused to say whether he would force his members to vote against it until he meets them today.

Moreover, he also faces the possibility that Mr. Harper will try to engineer a quick election before Mr. Dion can properly unite his party and organize for a vote.

He must also seek to overcome doubts about his ability to win an election, especially in Quebec, where he has the image of a hard-line federalist, and members of his own party are nervous about his voter appeal.

The poll suggests that might still be an open question. Across Canada, 26 per cent said they would be less likely to vote Liberal now that Mr. Dion is leader, and 20 per cent said they would be more likely; 47 per cent said their vote would be unaffected.

"What this shows is he has a chance of accomplishing job one, which is the opportunity of coalescing the federalist vote in Quebec," said Allan Gregg, head of the Strategic Counsel. "In Ontario, these are the highest numbers that we have had for the Liberals since 2004."

Mr. Dion won the leadership in spectacular fashion after he barely nosed in front of Mr. Kennedy to finish third on the first ballot and then parlayed the support of Mr. Kennedy to propel him past the two leading candidates.

He moved immediately yesterday to prepare for a possible election when he announced the formation of his transition team, to be led by former Chrétien-era cabinet minister Marcel Masse and Ottawa entrepereneur Rod Bryden, a party activist and key fundraiser.

"I am a quick learner," he told reporters in his first news conference as Liberal Leader. "We don't have a lot of time, as you know. We may be in an election at any time."

And while some in the Liberals' already-deflated Quebec francophone establishment privately expressed concerns that he cannot build support -- leaving open the question of who will help him re-build the party's tattered organization there -- Mr. Dion has a reply.

"People have always underestimated me. Perhaps it's good that people have underestimated me -- it has worked for me," he said. "But I think I have built a relationship of mutual respect with Quebeckers. You feel it, you see it, and you will see it more and more."

Minutes after his victory, opposition politicians tried to tag Mr. Dion for being part of the Liberal Party during the sponsorship scandal and for wrapping himself in green despite the fact that greenhouse-gas emissions rose under his watch. "Like my father used to say when he was not impressed: 'Weak, mister, weak.' They have to find something a little better, I think."

Mr. Dion met for lunch yesterday with the seven defeated candidates, and the two leading candidates he defeated said they intend to run in the next election -- with different degrees of enthusiasm "Oh yeah. I'm not going anywhere," Mr. Ignatieff, already a Toronto MP, told reporters. Mr. Rae, looking drained and puffy-eyed, was not so effusive. "Yes, that's still my intention," he said when asked if he will run.

Mr. Harper, who had promised during the last election campaign to hold a vote on reopening the same-sex marriage debate, moved Friday to spring the vote on the Liberals just as their new leader arrives.

"To me it's a matter of rights and you don't pick and choose rights," Mr. Dion said. "I think it's a very bad idea from the Prime Minister to reopen this debate."

The poll surveyed 1,000 Canadians yesterday, and is accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times in 20. The polling in Quebec used a sample of 247 and is considered accurate within 6.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

With reports from Alex Dobrota, Gloria Galloway, Canadian Press