What are the potential outcomes of Canada's federal election?

OTTAWA, April 16 (Reuters) - Canada will hold a general election on April 28, with polls indicating a close race between Prime Minister Mark Carney's ruling Liberals and the official opposition Conservatives of Pierre Poilievre.

There are 343 seats in the elected House of Commons chamber. A party falling short of the 172 seats needed for a majority is obliged to create a minority government reliant on support from opposition legislators to stay in power. Minority governments tend to be less stable and rarely last more than two years.

Here are the potential outcomes of the vote and what they would mean:

This result would be the most straightforward. Carney would continue to govern without interruption. Before the House returned on May 26, he would put together a cabinet, work on a budget and outline his plans for the next parliamentary session.

Carney would continue to govern but have to either negotiate with opposition legislators for support or go it alone and dare other parties to topple his government. Minority governments need to show they have the confidence of the House and the first opportunity to do so would be the Speech from the Throne, which is written by the government and read out by the governor general, the personal representative of King Charles, Canada's head of state. Opposition parties would later be able to vote to bring down the government when it presented its budget.

If the Liberals fell a few seats short of the 172 needed for a majority, they would most likely govern as though they had one, confident that other parties would not want to oust them so soon ...
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