Canada elections: Justin Trudeau wins second term but Liberal Party loses majority

Television projections predicted Trudeau's Liberal Party winning 156 out 338 seats - short of the 170 seats required for forming a majority government - and only 34 seats more than his main rival Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives.

The Prime Minister now faces the task of forming an alliance with other parties in order to bolster his minority government in parliament, which he will be in charge of spearheading starting from the early hours of Tuesday morning. 

"From coast to coast to coast, tonight Canadians rejected division and negativity," Trudeau said. "And they rejected cuts and austerity and voted in favour of a progressive agenda and strong action on climate change."

His leadership will be under scrutiny from the start. Trudeau will be delivering a speech outlining his government's legislative priorities, prior to facing parliament's confidence vote. 

The outcome of the election reflects deep divisions in Canadian society. Election campaigns on both sides were plagued by misinformation and attack ads, as more remote provinces of the country have protested their feelings of alienation within the federation. 

"I've heard your frustration," reassured the PM, promising to tend to the different fractions of his country, especially in the French-speaking province of Quebec where his party had a significant electoral set-back. 

The 47-year-old former school teacher dominated Canadian politics over the four years of his first term, but faced a grilling during the 40-day election campaign, which he described as one of the "dirtiest and nastiest" in Canadian history.

Trudeau accused past and current Conservative candidates of fostering a "politics of fear and division" while Scheer called the prime minister a "compulsive liar," "a phony and a fraud."

Going into the election Trudeau's golden boy image had already been damaged by ethics lapses in handling a bribery prosecution of engineering giant SNC-Lavalin. His popularity took a further hit with the emergence during the campaign of old photographs of him in blackface makeup.

At one rally, the prime minister was forced to wear a bulletproof vest due to a security threat.

Outside polling stations, Canadians told AFP they had wished for a more positive campaign focused on issues.

"I deplored the cheap shots during the campaign. I think we're better than that," said Andree Legault in Montreal.

In his concession speech, Scheer said, "Canadians have passed judgement on (Trudeau's) Liberal government," noting that the Liberals shed more than 20 seats as well as "support in every region of the country."

"Canada is a country that is further divided," he said, warning that its oil sector, the fourth largest in the world but struggling with low prices and a lack of pipeline capacity, is "under attack."

"We have put him on notice, his leadership is damaged and his government will end soon and when that time comes, the Conservatives will be ready and we will win!"

A record 97 women were elected to parliament, including Canada's first indigenous attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, who ran as an independent candidate after Trudeau kicked her out of his caucus.

The night also saw Conservative deputy leader Lisa Raitt turfed and Liberal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale lose the seat he held for 26 years.

Social democrats and Quebec separatists also chipped away at Liberal support.

The Bloc Quebecois came back from a ruinous 2015 election result, tapping into lingering Quebec nationalism to take 32 seats, while the New Democratic Party (NDP) won 24 seats, according to projections.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, a leftist former criminal defense lawyer, is the first non-white leader of a federal political party in Canada, and will likely emerge as kingmaker.

The Green Party, hopeful for a breakout, meanwhile managed to add only one seat, bringing its tally to three.

Some 27.4 million Canadians were eligible to vote in the election, and the turnout was reported to have been large, at almost 65 percent.