The Current - Is Eurovision Canada’s Next Big Stage?

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s latest federal budget includes a proposal to explore Canada's participation in Europe’s biggest song competition: Eurovision. This annual competition sees countries battling for the top spot through musical performances. But not all Canadians are singing along. We’re joined by historian and unofficial Eurovision expert Tess Megginson to unpack what Eurovision really is and what it could mean for Canada to join the show.

We love Zadie Smith for her novels and her essays, not to mention her incredible jumpsuits and beautiful headscarves. She's kind of iconic, but she's also just a mom who has a teen to deal with. I tentatively suggested to my daughter, hey, I wrote this piece about being a teenager. Before I even got to the end of the sentence, she was like, hell no. Get that away from me. You could literally be Zadie Smith and your kids still might not want to listen to you.

But if you want to listen to more of Zadie, you can head to my podcast, Bookends with Matea Roach. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Over the past couple of days, politicians and pundits have dissected and critiqued the new federal budget. We've been doing that here on this very program, talking about numbers and deficits and debts and votes. One line item that is getting a surprising amount of buzz. from said budget is the idea of getting Canada into Eurovision. The Eurovision Song Contest is a ridiculously popular competition.

It attracts hundreds of millions of viewers from around the world. International singers perform original songs to win for their country. It launched Abba when they first performed Waterloo in the competition in 1974. Celine Dionne sang for Switzerland in 1988, a huge moment in her career. And now the budget commits to working with CBC Roger Canada, to make way for Canadian participation. Tass Migginson is formerly an historian. Informally, she is a Eurovision expert.

Tess, good morning. Good morning. Can you describe for somebody who has no idea what we're talking about. What is Eurovision? Officially it's the Eurovision song contest, but it's much more than a song competition, right? Yeah.

It's an annual song contest held for members of the European Broadcasting Union, So countries like the UK, France, Germany, all across Europe that get together and they perform, you know, these sometimes fun songs, ballads. And then at the end of the competition, both people and juries from the different countries vote on their favorite song. And that contest. So it's kind of this fun, kitsy contest, but also often has some political undertones as well. I mean, the political undertones are interesting because this is, it's spectacle in the true sense. of the word, but it can be a stage for controversy and drama and politics as well. Tell me

about that and how much of that is part of the draw. It's a huge part of the draw, especially for a lot of viewers. In the last couple of years, we've seen a lot of controversies with Israel's participation in the contest. Certain countries like the Netherlands threatening to boycott the contests, other countries being fined for waving Palestinian flags while Israel performs. And then, of course, a couple years ago, we also saw Russia get temporarily banned from the contest after their invasion of Ukraine. So there's always politics in the contest every year. And especially the last couple years, it's been escalated. What do you love about it? I mean, I love everything from the fun Europop performances and the silly costumes to, you know,

these kind of more political moments. You know, there's also very lovely political moments in the contest as well. Say, once again, a couple years ago, when you Ukraine won the contests, you got to see this kind of beautiful moment of European solidarity with Ukraine. So, you know, it's fun, but it also is an interesting contest to watch as well. We mentioned Abba and Celine. I mean, if you win Eurovision, what happens to you? You know, people, you know, like Selendian or groups like Abba can see a lot of success.

You've also seen some other success. A couple contestants in the last couple years have gone. on viral and been more popular outside of Europe as well, winning the contest doesn't necessarily guarantee success, especially outside of Europe. It just depends on the year and the type of song that wins. And so there is now discussion, and this isn't the first time, but there is discussion now laid out in the federal budget about trying to get Canada into Eurovision. The obvious question that some people might have, you're the expert, but it's called Eurovision. We are not the member of Europe. How would that work?

Yeah. So, I mean, I was definitely surprised to see that item in the budget, like I think a lot of people were. There's only been one exception to allowing a country into Eurovision that's out of what's called the European Broadcasting Area. So that isn't just Europe, but also includes some countries in North Africa as well as some countries in the Middle East. And that exception was made 10 years ago for Australia. Now, they have a huge fan base of Eurovision, Austria. People watch it. It's broadcast every year. And as a special anniversary, they allowed Australia into the competition. It was only supposed to be for one year. And then now they've been participating every year since. So my guess is that the government's hoping that we could also get a special exemption to participate in the contest like Australia does every year. I mean, we're a member of the European Broadcast Union. So maybe that helps get us in as well? We're an associate member. So there are members of the union, which are, you know, the European countries that participate in some, as I mentioned, Middle Eastern North African countries.

And then we're an associate member. So that means that we're not actually in the broadcasting area. And, you know, there are also other associate members such as, you know, NBC in the U.S. or NPR. They're also associate members. It doesn't necessarily mean that we're guaranteed entry into the contest. There's also been resistance to this in part because people don't want to water it down too much, right? not suggesting that bringing us or the Americans into it would water it down. But there is, there is, there is concern that if you let everybody in, everybody's in,

and how special is it? Well, certainly. And I mean, the idea behind the contest is to foster this idea of European unity. And as you mentioned earlier, you know, Canada is not Europe. Whatever philosophical discussion we'll get into about what Europe is, Canada is not usually or ever included in that conversation. So I think that's one part of it. And another one being that, you know, it's also not very popular here. You know, obviously you have the fans.

I'm a huge fan of the contest. I have friends who are. But it's not popular here like it is, say, in other areas around the world that are outside of Europe. So I think it would also be an uphill battle to get the public on the side of being part of the contest. Not popular yet. Yet, that's true. People have wanted this country. I said this isn't the first time.

People have wanted Canada to get into Eurovision before. but it was decided that it was prohibitively expensive to do it. Why is it so expensive to be part of Eurovision? Well, you have a lot of costs associated with. So there are participation fees for those who are joining the contest. There's, of course, travel costs, hotels, staging, paying for the performance. Some countries even hold their own national song contests to decide who their participant will be that year.

So, of course, that adds a lot to the cost. Of course, those things aren't essential for participating. So there's definitely ways we could cut the costs if we did want to participate. But even then, it could run us into the hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to participate. CBC is reporting that the prime minister himself, Mark Carney, is personally involved in this push? What is this about, do you think? But he's also been looking to strengthen trade ties with Europe. Is this part of something larger?

Or is he spent a lot of time in England? Is he a Eurovision fan? I'd say probably a bit of both. Yeah, I definitely think that for it makes sense with what the liberals have been pushing, you know, these closer political and economic ties with Europe. This is Europe's biggest cultural event every year. So it makes sense that if we're trying to get closer to Europe that we'd want to participate in this event. I think on the other hand, you also have a lot of desire from the liberal government to foster Canadian patriotism as well. And this is an event that, you know, I imagine he'd think Canadians can rally behind.

and get excited about Canadian participation while also becoming closer allies with Europe. Two final questions for you. One is, as a good, as a Eurovision fan, Eurovision expert, is this a good idea? I think it's a silly idea. As much as I love Eurovision and it would be fun to participate, I don't think it makes a lot of sense for us to do it. And as I mentioned, one of the biggest things there being that there's not a lot of interest in Eurovision in Canada compared to other countries. And that could change, of course, if we did participate,

maybe people would be interested and want to watch. But a couple of years ago, we even tried to have our own version of Eurovision in Canada and that didn't even get off the ground. So I don't think it's the best use of our funds. I think we have bigger fish to fry right now with things going on, like cost of living and the housing crisis. These are more important, I think, than Canada joining Eurovision. And yet, if we were to join it, the final question,

who should we send to represent this nation in Eurovision? I'm so glad you asked that question because I do have an answer. I think that if we sent Carly Ray Jepchin, we would definitely win the contest. She's got that perfect pop vibe. I think she could do the Europop thing if we let her. And I think we could win the contest easily if we sent her. You know who we were talking about yesterday in the office? Shania Twain.

Oh, that would be a good one too. She would play in Eurovision. Like, that would work. Oh, yeah. She's great performer, too. Tess, thank you very much. Thank you. Tess Meginson, is an historian, Eurovision fan.

This has been the current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. At all time zones, or you can also listen online at cbc.ca. Or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening.