When are federal elections held in Canada?

Discover Canada records the schedule in one direct sentence. The guide writes: Under legislation passed by Parliament, federal elections must be held on the third Monday in October every four years following the most recent general election. The Prime Minister may ask the Governor General to call an earlier election. The schedule the test wants is therefore every four years on the third Monday in October.

Two parts of the answer matter. The interval is every four years; the date is the third Monday in October. Discover Canada's wording — "Under legislation passed by Parliament" — emphasises that this fixed-date schedule is a statute, not just a convention.

The schedule has an exception. Discover Canada notes: "The Prime Minister may ask the Governor General to call an earlier election." So an election can come sooner than the four-year interval if the Prime Minister advises the Governor General to dissolve Parliament early. This often happens when the government loses a non-confidence vote — Discover Canada writes elsewhere that Cabinet ministers "have to resign if they are defeated in a non-confidence vote."

The fixed-date rule is a recent feature inside an older system. The federal House of Commons has had elections "traditionally every four years" for much longer, but the specific third-Monday-in-October date for fixed elections was added by legislation. So the test answer reflects the current Canadian rule — fixed-date federal elections, every four years, on a specific Monday in October.

The question is testing whether new citizens have noticed both halves of the federal-election schedule in Discover Canada. The guide commits to a precise pair: every four years + the third Monday in October. The right test answer keeps both.

The wrong answer choices each break one or both halves. Three years in June, five years in November, and six years in July do not appear in Discover Canada for federal elections. Only the fixed-date statute — third Monday in October, every four years — matches the guide.