Radio Free Järbo

Voting Has Started on Canada's First Eurovision Entry 

In just a short time, we will know who will be the first official Canadian entry into Eurovision.  Voting has started and continues until November 5.  

Now, there were other Canadians who were in Eurovision before, but none of the represented Canada itself.  Most notably, Celine Dionne represented--and won for--Switzerland in 1988.  Natasha St. Pier (from the province of New Brunswick) represented France in 2001 and came in a very respectable fourth place.  In 2023, La Zara sang "Évidemment."  The crowd loved her performance and she came in 16th place overall.   We think it looks good for Canada in Eurovision.  

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Canada's public broadcaster and member of the EBU, put out a call for interested musicians to apply to be the Eurovision entry.  The CBC says it has 325 applicants, from which 15 were selected and presented to a jury.  That jury has selected five artists from which the Canadian public can choose their favourite.  While we think any of the artists could do Canada proud in their first official outing, we have our preferences (of course).

Note, however, that the vote is for just the artist, not the song.  So voters have to take it on faith the winning performer will write a great song for the event.  We hope that the CBC will find a way going forward to allow the public to choose the artist and the song they will bring to the competition.  

From our perspective, the selected artist will have two goals.  One is to make it to the Grand Final, so that there are more viewers.  The second is to plant the seed into the minds of Eurovision fans and juries that Canada is the musical powerhouse that it really is.  

The artists competing are:

Talk (otherwise known as Nicholas Derocher) has a powerful voice and stage presence.  He writes his own songs.   His recent song "Run Away to Mars" was a big hit in Canada.  That song, plus many of his others has amassed millions of hits on Spotify.  

Rêve (Briannah Donolo) can really make dance pop work in her favour.  If she is chosen, the choreographer can really use her dance abilities to make an interesting showing.  Personally, we are not fans of her sound per se, but feel she is very talented musically with the right amount of showmanship.

William Cloutier is as easy on the eyes as his is on the ears.  He can sing a ballad really well.  His stage and theatre background could be an asset if called upon to grab the audience's attention on the big stage.  The songs he has presented as samples of his work don't blow us away, as nice as they are.

Josiane is a bilingual pop performer, also from New Brunswick as was Natasha St. Pier, and it went well for her.  Her songs are very personal and would speak well to the Eurovision audience.  She won La Voix, the French version of The Voice in 2020, and that would likely be very good experience should she get a chance to grace the Eurovision stage.  

Tyler Shaw is an experience musician with a number of albums and all kinds of performing experience under his belt. His song "With You" is a great song, and it's too bad it wouldn't qualify to be his Eurovision if he were to win.  

OK, Canada.  Get out there in the next few days and vote.