Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Canada's Liberal Party, battered by a corruption scandal and losing support in the French-speaking province of Quebec, turned to its tried-and-true formula by electing Stephane Dion, a federalist Quebecer, as the new leader.

The Liberals haven't won a majority government in more than 60 years without a native French speaker at the helm, and Dion was the only such candidate vying for the leadership. Dion, 51, a former environment minister who entered politics a decade ago to fight separatism in Quebec, won the eight-way race Dec. 2 on the fourth ballot.

``They chose continuity rather than going with something entirely new,'' said Rejean Pelletier, a political scientist at Laval University in Quebec City, where Dion studied. Dion will give Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative Party ``a good run for their money'' in elections that may take place as early as next year, Pelletier said.

Dion's experience fighting separatism and his focus on environmental protection may help the Liberals among federalist Quebecers and with left-of-center voters who defected to other parties in January, when Harper came to power after 13 years of Liberal rule. Dion wrote a 2000 law limiting Quebec's ability to declare independence, and opposes tax breaks for the country's energy industry.

The party has already received a post-convention boost from the selection of Dion, according to a poll by the Strategic Counsel for the Globe and Mail. The Liberals would receive 37 percent of the vote if elections were held today, up five percentage points from an October survey. That compares with 31 percent for the Conservatives, the poll of 1,000 voters found. The survey, published's in today's newspaper, has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

Unpopular

Still, Dion isn't well-known outside central Canada and his positions have made him unpopular in Quebec, even among voters who want more power for the province without favoring sovereignty. Those vulnerabilities may prompt Harper, who leads a minority government, to force an election before Dion has time to grow into a strong opponent, said John Wright, a pollster with Ipsos Reid in Toronto.

``The question everybody is going to start asking is, when is the election?'' Wright said in a telephone interview. Minority governments in Canada have lasted on average just 18 months.

By selecting a former environment minister, the Liberals are trying to take ownership of an issue that's important to voters, especially in Quebec. Overall, the environment is the second-biggest issue among voters behind health care, according to an Environics Research poll of 2,005 voters Nov. 2-6. Seventy-one percent said Harper's environmental plan, which he introduced in October, is ``not tough enough.''

Harper Opponent

Dion defied odds to win the leadership race. After entering the first ballot in fourth place, he eventually defeated former Harvard University academic Michael Ignatieff, the front-runner throughout the nine-month campaign.

Dion had leapfrogged past Ignatieff and former Ontario provincial premier Bob Rae to take the lead in the previous ballot, with support from delegates for Gerard Kennedy, a former Ontario education minister who withdrew after finishing two votes behind Dion on the second ballot. Dion won with 55 percent of the vote at a Montreal convention center.

``I was always underestimated,'' Dion said yesterday during a press conference. ``Maybe they should continue underestimating me because I've succeeded.''

Critics

The governing Conservative Party criticized Dion's record as environment minister and tried to link him to the corruption scandal that led to the Liberal Party's January defeat.

The Liberals lost power after an inquiry found Quebec-based marketing firms gave party officials more than C$1 million ($873,744) in kickbacks for government contracts that were part of an anti-separatist advertising scheme. While never implicated, Dion was the minister responsible for national unity in former Prime Minister Jean Chretien's cabinet when many of the contracts were handed out.

``He's one of those Chretien cabinet ministers from Quebec, who sat there throughout the sponsorship scandal and claimed not to know a thing that went on,'' John Baird, one of Harper's senior ministers, told reporters.

Kyoto

During Dion's tenure as environment minister, Canada failed to take steps to meet greenhouse-gas emissions targets that the Liberal Party government had committed to when it signed the Kyoto treaty on climate change, Baird noted.

``He's been a one-issue candidate and his own record has been abysmal when it comes to the environment,'' he said.

If elected, Dion says he'd take a tougher stance than Harper by aiming to meet the Kyoto commitments. Harper's government said in October it won't try to meet the treaty's emissions targets and won't impose mandatory caps until as late as 2025.

Canada's gas emissions have soared as companies expand production in the western province of Alberta's oil-rich tar sands. Dion said during his campaign that he'd scrap the tax relief oil companies get when they invest in new projects, and proposed incentives and tax breaks for families and businesses that buy energy-efficient products.

Dion's environmental focus may be enough for the party to rebuild in Quebec, where 75 of the country's 308 federal electoral districts are located.

Quebec Support

The environment ``is much more important to voters in Quebec than people in other parts of the country,'' Allan Tupper, a political scientist at the University of British Columbia, said in an interview after Dion took the lead in Saturday's third ballot.

In January, the Conservatives took the first step toward supplanting the Liberals as the federalist option in Quebec by winning 10 seats. Harper last month pushed Parliament to pass a motion recognizing Quebec as a nation within Canada, and has pledged to meet a perennial Quebec demand by keeping his government out of provincial affairs such as education.

Still, every elected Liberal leader in the past century has gone on to become prime minister.

``It may well be that the Conservatives' support in Quebec was illusory, and that the Liberals will be able to reconstitute themselves quickly,'' Tupper said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Theophilos Argitis in Montreal at targitis@bloomberg.net; Alexandre Deslongchamps in Montreal at adeslongcham@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: December 4, 2006 09:08 EST