Canada Eyes Eurovision Song Contest entry: will the Nation “rise Like a Phoenix”?
Canada may soon join the ranks of nations competing in the globally popular Eurovision Song Contest. The Liberal governmentS 2025 budget includes a commitment to explore participation with the CBC. This initiative aims to showcase Canadian culture on a global stage, according to Prime Minister Mark Carney.The move is driven by a desire to strengthen international ties and explore new trade partnerships.
The Eurovision Song Contest, organized annually by the European Broadcasting Union as 1956, currently features acts primarily from European countries, alongside participants like Australia. Canada’s potential involvement has been discussed since Australia’s debut in 2015, according to Dean Vuletic, a historian of the contest. He noted that the idea aligns with Canada’s efforts to forge stronger ties with European Union member states. “Canada is a country that is close to Europe, culturally, politically,” Vuletic explained. “This is a way for Canada to demonstrate that it is indeed closely tied with the European Union, that it shares the values of the European Union.”
This move also comes as Canada seeks out new trade partnerships amid ongoing trade tensions with the United States, with Carney actively engaging with numerous countries in recent months. Canada already has a history with the competition. Celine dion famously won for Switzerland in 1988, and Lara Fabian, who later became a Canadian citizen, represented Luxembourg the same year, finishing in fourth place. More recently, La Zarra, a Montreal-born singer, represented France in the 2023 contest, achieving a 16th-place finish with her performance of “Evidemment.”
While previous considerations by CBC/Radio-Canada where deemed too expensive, a new approach is being explored: a televised singing contest in Canada that would determine the nation’s Eurovision entry. Insight Productions in Toronto is developing a “bilingual-hosted show” to identify potential contestants, having initially planned an English-only program. Though, questions remain about public interest.Eurovision expert Karen Fricker wonders, “It’s super fun to watch, but would there be interest in it?” She points to the contest’s growing popularity among immigrant and diasporic communities, as well as its appeal to youth and the LGBTQ2S community – exemplified by the 2024 winner, Nemo, who identifies as non-binary, and the 2025 winner, JJ, who identifies as queer. Fricker also suggests that Australia’s success,built on a strong following within its immigrant population,could serve as a model for Canada. “The decision was made that because Australia is very much a country of immigrants, as is Canada…they have really, really built a following in Australia,” she said. “So that when Australia then got the possibility to compete, it made so much sense because there was so m
