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Helsinki (AFP)

Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini faces a parliamentary confidence vote for taking part in a pro-life demonstration during an official visit to Canada earlier this year.

The confidence vote was called by four opposition parties after Soini attended the March for Life candlelit vigil in Ottawa on May 9 while in town to meet his counterpart and discuss Arctic affairs.

The motion is however likely to be defeated by a substantial margin as Soini's coalition partners have pledged to oppose the vote of no confidence.

The vote could be held as early as Thursday, though the exact date is not yet known.

Finland's Chancellor of Justice Tuomas Poysti released a 10-page verdict on Tuesday describing Soini's presence at the anti-abortion demonstration as "problematic".

Poysti acknowledged that Soini, a Catholic and vocal opponent of abortion, had a right to his religious beliefs, but stressed that as foreign minister he should have exercised "restraint" while abroad.

"Foreign Minister Soini travelled while representing his country, whose legislation permits abortion and whose foreign and security policy works to further the sexual and reproductive rights, among others, of women and girls," Poysti said in his statement.

Soini said the chancellor's verdict was "a weighty thing and I take it all seriously and learn from it."

If he were to lose the confidence vote, Soini would become Finland's first minister since 1948 to be outed in this way.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Juha Sipila, whose Centre Party leads a three-party coalition comprising Soini's eurosceptic Blue Reform party and the conservative National Coalition, said the government would back Soini in the vote.

Soini also came under fire this year, from government and opposition MPs, after he published anti-abortion comments following Ireland's vote in May to overturn the county's abortion ban, and after the Argentian senate decided to uphold its strict abortion laws in August.

© 2018 AFP