The Eurovision Song Contest has a brand-new country – and it’s unlike any we’ve had before. Canada are now not only a part of the Eurovision party, but they’re also a full member of the European Broadcasting Union that organises it.
In this analysis, James Stephenson breaks down why Canada is joining Eurovision, why now, and what it could mean for the future of the Contest as we know it:
- The geopolitical gamble that has brought Canada to the Contest
- How a small statute change could have a big impact on its future
- What happens if Eurovision goes global – and what it could lose
“Oh…Canada.”
That’s how the national anthem of the Eurovision Song Contest’s newest competitors begins – and it sums up the online reaction to yesterday’s announcement quite well. In truth, this wasn’t a shock: Canada’s been linked with the Contest for the best part of a year, now. Today’s confirmation for fans, then, was more like when your football club signs a player after 100 journalists have said they’ve got the deal done.
But for people who don’t keep an eye on this, believe me – there will be shock in May. Canada joining Eurovision, announced on Canada Day no less, is a talking point that will capture the world’s attention, for better or worse. Just like Australia did when they were invited for their now 11-year-long one-off entry, it will draw curiosity, controversy and a lot of confusion from your family. Yes, you will have to explain why another country outside of Europe gets to compete.
But Canada’s entry is not like Australia’s. It’s nothing like it. How Canada and their broadcaster CBC/Radio Canada got here required vast political will, a desire for the Contest to look outward, and a change in the rules of what makes countries eligible for Eurovision that doesn’t just alter how broadcasters enter – it could rewrite the fabric of what this Contest represents.
To understand how we got here, we need to zoom out.
“The Most European of Non-European Countries”
Last week, CBC/Radio Canada became full members of the European Broadcasting Union. But that decision wasn’t as driven by broadcasting as you’d think.
The first whispers of Canada considering getting involved in the Eurovision Song Contest weren’t from a TV executive, or an EBU official – they were from the Canadian government.
They came as part of a federal budget announcement which promised $150m in Canadian dollars (approx. £80m) to CBC/Radio Canada to “strengthen its mandate to serve the public and to better reflect the needs of Canadians.” Part of that mandate included the Contest. The budget explicitly stated that the Government was working with CBC/Radio Canada to explore participation in Eurovision – note, not the other way around.
Why would they do this? Symbolism.
(Author’s note: They just had to mention there were three fights. Hockey is life.)
Canada has long-standing ties with its very powerful downstairs neighbours, the United States. But ever since new leadership came in, the feeling’s not been mutual. Donald Trump’s wide-ranging and increasingly insane list of international ambitions have included annexing Canada. Unsurprisingly, many in the second largest nation by landmass on Earth weren’t happy with the idea of becoming the 51st State.
(Canadian opinion polling ahead of the 2025 election – Undermedia)
While Trump bulldozed into power, Canada’s incumbent Liberal Party (red like Labour) was losing grip on it. As 2024 turned into 2025, their unpopularity had them in third in some national opinion polls. Justin Trudeau, the long-standing Prime Minister of the country, resigned to seek a new position as Katy Perry’s boyfriend, in a truly understandable move. And his replacement, Mark Carney, seized on America’s sudden and deep unpopularity in the country.
(Author’s note: For something to be Canadian, does it *have* to involve hockey?)
Calling an election days after being sworn in, Carney deliberately campaigned on a policy platform that Canada would always remain independent. That required him to not just be neutral towards the US, but downright hostile. This campaign video, which is almost offensively Canadian, has everyone’s favourite Shrek and least favourite Love Guru Mike Myers agreeing with Carney that “there will always be a Canada”. He’s wearing a hockey jersey, of course, with ‘Never 51’ on the back.
The effect was massive: Carney’s Liberal Party surged in the polls and delivered him enough seats in Canada’s Parliament to keep him in his post. That huge turnaround, though, meant a short supply of goodwill from the land of the free. It was no wonder, then, that Carney could use some new international friends. Soon after his victory, he was signing a security and defence agreement in Brussels where he called Canada “the most European of the non-European countries”.
What’s notable about Canada’s PM is his personal ties to Europe. Carney’s previous main claim to fame was his eight-year tenure as Governor of the Bank of England, which made him one of the most powerful people in setting monetary and economic policy in the country. He was in post during Brexit, in which he showed his support for Britain remaining by warning of the risks of a recession should they leave.
And, somewhere along the line, Mark Carney became aware of the Eurovision Song Contest. While we’re not sure how this year’s Contest fitted into his very busy schedule of running a state, he did post in 2025 that he had spoken to Australia’s Premier Anthony Albanese about how Go-Jo was “robbed” at Eurovision that year. Even if he was, I feel his appearance in the “Austria vs Australia” interval act this May pretty much cancelled out any potential sympathy.
He described Australia and Canada as sharing “the same values and ambitions”. Now, those values and ambitions are united in a completely new way.
The Case for Canada
Canada, and Carney specifically, have gone big on their Eurovision Song Contest debut. The PM was quick to address a rally about the announcement, even taking the time to tease a national selection show to pick their first act. So if the country is excited to compete, and they’re making a serious point of doing so, why shouldn’t we be keen on Canada taking part?
(Author’s Note: My GOD HOW MUCH HOCKEY ARE WE PLAYING)
Musically, there’s a huge case. Canada – as Carney stated numerous times yesterday – is the third largest musical exporter on Earth, only behind the US and the UK. Their biggest artists are among the world’s biggest.
The Weeknd tours the world’s biggest stadiums (and makes messed up TV shows); Tate McRae is a girlbop-maker and dancer par excellence; and their biggest hip-hop artist got musically slapped up by Kendrick Lamar, publicly and brutally. Which, for the record, he deserved. And that’s just today’s big names: Shania Twain, Bryan Adams, Joni Mitchell…the lead singer from Nickelback. It’s a prestigious history.
We won’t be seeing those artists at Eurovision, barring some Senhit-level outreach. But beyond the big names, Canada’s music scene has depth and diversity to rival any Eurovision competitor. From ESC-friendly pop, to Francophone chansons, to deep alt-rock roots, to Celtic-kissed folk from the Atlantic provinces, to First Nations and Inuit traditions, Canada’s got it all. And they’ve won a song contest ESC Insight loves, as Pan-Arctic Vision co-champs in 2024.
As absolutely everyone has already observed, Canada’s biggest musical export arguably ever emerged from at Eurovision, even if that was for Switzerland. And Celine’s not the only one: Canucks have competed from as early as 1983, when Canada-born Gary Lux represented Austria for the first of three cracks at the Contest. In fact, that means Canadians have hit the stage before 26 other Eurovision competitors did.
While Canada may be in North America, there are further European connections. Most notably, there’s Quebec – the only one of Canada’s provinces with a Francophone majority, with many others parts of the country officially bilingual in French and English. Quebec is part of Canada, but very vocally themselves – in 1993, a party that stood solely in Quebec on issues affecting its residents became the Official Opposition. Canada’s commitment to bilingualism between English and French could very well be reflected in their entries down the line, too.
Canada even has land borders with Europe. In 2022, after a dispute over 320 uninhabited acres of Inuit hunting grounds off Canada’s coast between them and Denmark, the two nations agreed to split the island about in half. Hans Island, then, is a direct border from Canada to Europe…technically. Then again, that’s the same amount of land borders with Europe the UK has. So in that narrow scope, it’s completely normal.
Not By Invite Only
But Canada’s entry into Eurovision is, beyond the fact they are thousands of miles from Europe, not normal at all. Canada’s entry moves the Contest’s geographical centre further to the West, and further away from Europe itself. In the EBU’s press release announcing Canada signing up, Director of the Eurovision Song Contest Martin Green said that “while born in Europe, the Contest continues to welcome the world.”
That’s a great sentiment. But I think it’s much more than just kind words. For the EBU to allow Canada to enter Eurovision, there’s been a significant shift in tone from the top. For the last 70 years, the Eurovision Song Contest has, with one single exemption, reserved access to its magic and wonders to countries who fall within its satellite reception limits.
The one exemption, as I’m sure you know, is Australia. SBS, their broadcaster, was granted Associate Membership, and the current arrangement between them and the EBU is that the Union invites them to take part in Eurovision on an annual basis. Last week, the EBU confirmed on record that Australia’s participation in Eurovision was granted under that exemption.
However, CBC/Radio Canada were also Associate Members of the EBU. But they haven’t been invited by the EBU, nor are they competing because of any exemption. Canada is a full member of the Union now, in the exact same way as Sweden or Slovenia or Switzerland, with the same rights and privileges. For the EBU’s purposes, Canada is now technically and legally in their definition of Europe. It’s just a little further away than the rest of it.
That means Canada will compete on equal terms. Unlike Australia, who got to qualify automatically for the Grand Final in their debut year in 2015, Canada will need to get through the semis just like everyone else. That’s an effective confirmation that Canada is here to stay, and that’s what makes their entrance into the Contest extremely different to any other in Eurovision’s history. They’ve not just created closer ties with the European media industry – they’ve effectively become part of it.
That has created one big, blaring signal – membership of the EBU is up for grabs for those with the political will to make it happen. At a time when Eurovision is expanding with new Contests internationally, and Eurovision Asia is only months from its launch, it’s a big shift to allow a country from halfway around the world to get involved on European soil. Does this mean that the EBU will start letting anyone compete in Eurovision if they’d like them to?
A Small Statute – With a Big Impact
That’s why we need to understand not just why Canada got full membership, but how. The EBU’s statutes didn’t allow non-European broadcasters to get total access – until last week.
The way they changed them was both incredibly symbolic, but highly specific. The new statutes, as voted through by the Union’s member broadcasters at last week’s General Assembly, were tailored almost specifically to suit Canada’s accession.
“The revised framework opens extra-European Membership to broadcasting organisations from countries with a public service media system aligned with core Council of Europe standards and formal observer status with the Council of Europe. Canada meets both criteria.”
Let’s take a look at both criteria, then.
I’ll start with the second: formal observer status with the Council of Europe? I won’t blame you for being baffled. The Council of Europe isn’t a broadcast organisation, but one that’s focused on human rights. In fact, they call themselves a “guardian” of human rights, and the world’s leading organisation on the subject. It was set up in 1949 to unite European nations after the War – not unlike another historic European institution.
While the Council is (mostly) a Euro-exclusive club, some countries outside the continent have formal observer status. After a bit of a dig into the legalese, countries that wish to obtain that status must accept democracy, rule of law and human rights in their territories: the three core themes the Council was founded on. Canada is only one of a handful of observers – the others are Japan, Mexico, the USA and the Holy See, which already has an EBU member broadcaster.
So, while membership is now technically open to those other nations, it’s only a handful who now have the power to join. But the first criteria gives the EBU even more control over that. A “public service media system aligned with core Council of Europe standards” isn’t necessarily set in stone, because whether it does is a subjective decision.
Values, like the ones the company you work for may constantly go on about, are more like guidelines: they can be bent and reshaped. And while the three values the Council is explicitly committed to – again, democracy, the rule of law and human rights – these are the sorts of values governments and nations are judged on rather than broadcasters. This is an important distinction to make – one the EBU has made on several occasions before.
Driven by Values, Not Politics?
The EBU’s justification for bringing CBC/Radio Canada into the fold, then, is because they align with the values of public service media which the EBU champions. On the surface, that makes perfect sense for anyone joining a Song Contest. But for this particular Song Contest?
It could be dangerous.
The Eurovision Song Contest is apolitical – that’s the EBU’s long-standing position. But values, whether they are hard or soft, are political statements. Last year, I made an episode of my podcast series for ESC Insight, Eurovision Uncovered, which was about the values of the Song Contest. And, in that episode, Dr. Jack Shepherd, a Doctor in Philosophy and Senior Lecturer at Mid-Sweden University, who has studied Eurovision’s values in academia, made that comparison clearly during the show. It stuck with me.
Why I bring this up is that bringing Canada to Eurovision, linguistically, shifts the foundations on which the Contest is built. Until now, the common denominator between all the competing countries – exempting Australia, which is a singular case – was their Europeanness. It was the fact they were part of the Europe that the Contest was set up for, built by and turned into a beloved annual event that brings generations together. It’s a European thing, we’d say – “other folks just wouldn’t get it.”
But now, Europeanness isn’t the qualifier for membership. It’s whether you meet a certain set of values, and to meet a certain set of values, you must have a certain kind of politics. With the decision to allow Canada to join Europe’s biggest party in the same way that only European nations currently can, Eurovision’s organisers are making a political choice – driven by the will of politicians – and using it to create a precedent.
The EBU’s leadership is clear that, while admitting the Contest is “so big an event that it has a political impact”, it is apolitical. “The EBU is not the European Union or the European Commission. We’re not the United Nations, so we don’t need to make any political decisions,” said Jean Philip De Tender, deputy director general at the EBU, in an interview with Politico on the day of this year’s Grand Final.
Yet, as CBC/Radio Canada is a formal observer of the Council of Europe, the Council of Europe is a formal observer of the United Nations. So why is the EBU willing to make decisions according to the values of organisations that its leadership claims they have no comparison to?
Lines which were clear are now much blurrier. And, as the EBU becomes more overt in its values while continuing to become more neutral in its politics, that creates gaps within what the Eurovision Song Contest stands for on paper and what it stands for in practice. In those gaps, the EBU can decide what it does if a South Korea or a South Africa or a Saudi Arabia asks to join up one day. But, as they’ve shown in Canada’s case, there’s a willingness to change the board to help some play the game.
If Canada’s In, Who Else is Out?
Many countries have tried, and failed, to get into the Eurovision Song Contest in recent years. Kazakhstan, while outside of continental Europe, has competed in other European competitions like football and entered Junior Eurovision four times – but they’ve not been invited to the party. Kosovo is a country in mainland Europe whose broadcaster has established its own music competition with the stated aim of using it as a national selection – sorry, we can’t let you in.
So why does Canada get a party hat and balloons? A compelling argument is scale. While Kosovo and Kazakhstan are small nations in the international arena, Canada is anything but, both in land and in status. A G8 nation with a population of 41.4 million people, Canada is now the 5th largest participant in Eurovision on that metric – only behind the countries that make up the Big Four.
With Eurovision in Vienna around 35 million viewers down on last year’s Contest in Basel, Canada is a significant media market to mine. Not only that, it’s a genuine financial power. Based on the stated principle that “the strongest shoulders carry the most weight”, Canada would be expected to pay a higher participation fee than the majority of Eurovision entrants. While Martin Green has succinctly called rumours about Eurovision being in a ‘precarious’ financial state as “bollocks”, it’s clear to see the monetary boost Canada’s participation could offer.
In that same interview, Green made clear that Eurovision had no plans to change its name despite Canada joining up. But in that response, he said:
“We’re right up there with the Olympics and the Oscars in terms of global brand recognition, and I think, in a way, the more we go to other places, the more we do other things, the fact that the name has within it this honor of its birth and why it was created is fantastic.”
There’s that lovely sentiment again about Eurovision’s birth. But, in this context, its birth seems very clearly in the past tense. Eurovision’s name, at least in my interpretation of this answer, is now more a representation of how the Contest was built originally, and not what it is today. In that same answer, he claimed “Eurovision stands for many things now”. But does it stand for what it always was?
Growth, Growth, Growth
(Author’s note: It’s been some heavy stuff, I think you’ve earned this)
Let me be clear – change is good. Adding beavers, maple syrup, and moose (shouldn’t that be meese or something? It just doesn’t feel plural) to the fabric of Eurovision is exciting! Absolutely brilliant, even. And, from a mainstream perspective, Canada will be a bigger headline than the returns of Romania, Bulgaria and Moldova to this year’s competition combined.
There’s a huge opportunity for Eurovision, in a business sense, in breaking Canada. It’s a huge market if the Contest can take hold, and opens it up to a whole new audience. From a commercial perspective, there’s significant opportunities for sponsorship if Canadian companies catch the bug. I know none of what I’m saying is sexy or magic or what we love Eurovision for. But if we want it to keep going, it has to be financially successful.
(Author’s note: I thought we’d escaped hockey but HERE WE GO AGAIN)
Canada is having a big cultural moment. Heated Rivalry, produced in Canada, is the most talked-about show on TV over the past year, combining the Canadian love affair with hockey and the world’s love affair with very hot people to devastating effect. Its popularity is so ubiquitous that the Eurovision TikTok account referenced the show to promote Canada’s participation next year. Just as Canada’s government wants to get involved in Europe’s biggest cultural event, Eurovision’s bound to have a lot of fun riffing on Canadian culture too.
However, even if fans grow to love our new North American friends, it will be controversial. It’ll be the main topic of conversation in the mainstream, the one talking point that people who don’t watch the Contest pick up. Debates will run both in family living rooms in May and in fan forums from now until then and far beyond. People you respect will lose all dignity in screaming for Carly Rae Jepsen, Canada’s greatest export, to compete. I will be one of them.
That discourse will drive much of the conversation in 2027 – we need to prepare for that. We need to make sure it doesn’t overshadow other controversies the Contest is still grappling with.
Leaving History Behind
There’s no doubt in my mind that Canada, and the Eurovision Song Contest, can make a success of their new relationship. Everyone involved can win. Canada’s government can claim a political history as it de-aligns with its noisy neighbours. Eurovision’s organisers can claim a new frontier as this European event enters a potential era of global conquest. And Canada’s artist, whoever the lucky soul is, might claim the only victory that really matters to us – the Contest itself.
But the mechanisms used to make it happen, the language used to justify it and the precedent it might set are concerning. Eurovision runs the risk, while getting the short-term gain of a big, bright and brand-new country, of diluting what makes Eurovision special. It’s a European contest that has always brought European nations together – perhaps, in this global world, that’s too isolationist. But that’s what it’s always been for 70 years. This feels a little different – and precedents set in the short-term can bite long after they’re set.
Whatever the reasons, the reality is the same – Eurovision is moving forward into a new future. But that future looks increasingly expansionist, increasingly ephemeral and increasingly corporate. Eurovision is more focused on brand identity than at any point in memory. Green commented yesterday that “we’re right up there with the Olympics and the Oscars in terms of global brand recognition”. But the vast majority of its viewers focus a lot more on the ‘Euro’ bit of its name than the ‘Vision’.
While there’s every reason to get excited about what Canada can bring to Bulgaria next summer, I hope that the new doesn’t come at the cost of the current. The EBU has already co-opted the ‘United by Music’ slogan so frequently and frivolously for its own ends that its original meaning of the UK and Ukraine coming together to host together is long gone.
Without care, what the Eurovision Song Contest itself means could go the same way.