If the party in power holds at least half of the seats in the House of Commons, it is called a:

Discover Canada records this in one direct sentence. The guide writes: If the party in power holds at least half of the seats in the House of Commons, this is called a majority government. If the party in power holds less than half of the seats in the House of Commons, this is called a minority government. The kind of government the test wants is therefore a majority government.

Two paired definitions. Discover Canada commits Canadian government types to TWO specific named definitions: (1) a majority government — the party in power holds at least half of the seats in the House of Commons; (2) a minority government — the party in power holds less than half of the seats. So the named distinction depends entirely on whether the governing party controls at least half the House. The threshold is mathematically exact.

The selection process names the Governor General. Discover Canada commits the post-election sequence to a specific named procedure: "Ordinarily, after an election, the leader of the political party with the most seats in the House of Commons is invited by the Governor General to form the government. After being appointed by the Governor General, the leader of this party becomes the Prime Minister." So the Governor General — the Sovereign's representative in Canada — issues the formal invitation, and the leader of the largest party becomes the Prime Minister. The named majority-or-minority status is then determined by the seat count.

Both types depend on House confidence. Discover Canada commits both majority and minority governments to the same survival rule: "The Prime Minister and the party in power run the government as long as they have the support or confidence of the majority of the MPs." So a minority government can govern only with the help of MPs from other parties on confidence votes — making it more politically vulnerable than a majority government, which has the votes to pass measures on its own. The named confidence-of-the-House principle remains the foundation of cabinet survival in either case. Cabinet ministers must retain the confidence of the House and have to resign if they are defeated in a non-confidence vote. So the majority-versus-minority distinction is a useful way to describe how secure the governing party is in the House — but in either case the basic rules of responsible government apply. So when the test asks the name of the government formed by a party holding at least half of the seats in the House of Commons, the source-precise answer is a majority government.

The question is testing whether new citizens know the name for a government holding at least half the seats. Discover Canada commits to one term: majority government. The right test answer matches that.

The wrong answer choices each substitute a different government term. The first choice describes a multi-party arrangement — never named in the source as the term for a single-party majority. The third choice is the source's named term for a party holding LESS than half the seats — the OPPOSITE of the test's premise. The fourth choice is a transitional-government term not named in the source. Only majority government — the source's exact named term for a party holding at least half the seats — matches.