Ottawa is exploring a Canadian entry in the famously popular Eurovision song contest, suggesting cultural participation would help deepen our commercial relationship with the Europeans.
The item in question was all the way down on page 182 in the federal budget. Under the heading "Protecting Our National Broadcaster," is the following recommendation:
"Budget 2025 proposes to provide $150 million in 2025-26 for CBC/Radio-Canada to strengthen its mandate to serve the public and to better reflect the needs of Canadians. The government will explore modernising CBC/Radio-Canada's mandate to strengthen independence, and is working with CBC/Radio Canada to explore participation in Eurovision."
The press secretary to the Office of the Minister of Finance and National Revenue told National Post in an email: "We are actively exploring Canada's inclusion at this time."
He added: "Eurovision, as you know, commands a global audience -- and would give Canada a venue to share its proud cultural and musical talents with the world at a time when deepening relations with European partners is imperative."
Dr. Karen Fricker, an adjunct professor at Brock University and Canada's preeminent expert in the Eurovision Song Contest -- "My phone is ringing off the hook," she said when National Post finally reached her Friday afternoon -- says there could be something in that.
"I think that there's a broader context for this in the current kind of destabilization of the global order, and the U.S.'s aggressive behaviours and dismissive attitudes towards European entities like NATO," she said. "Canada has an opportunity here to really flex this idea of being European, whatever that means. And not the U.S."
National Post has reached out to CBC for more information but did not receive a reply by press time.
A spokesperson for the Department of Finance Canada told National Post after the budget announcement: "Further details will be announced in due course."
"Several government sources have confirmed to the CBC that this is coming from the Prime Minister," Fricker said. "And he indicated through a tweet in May that he knows the contest." Mark Carney's years spent living in Britain would have given him greater exposure to the annual contest.
In an interview with Global News on budget day, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said the Eurovision proposal was at the behest of "the people who participate," suggesting that the European organizers may have reached out. He added that Eurovision is "a platform for Canada to shine. This is about protecting, also, our identity."
Fricker said participation in the contest wouldn't be a moneymaker -- for one thing, there is no cash prize for the winner -- but it needn't break the bank, either.
"Ireland disclosed how much it spent this year on Eurovision, and it adds up to about $575,000," she said. "You have to pay fees to the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) to join, and then there's the money to get an act together and get your delegation to where the contest is going to be. And next May it's going to be in Vienna."
Cost and geopolitical considerations aside, Fricker is all in for Canada taking part, for a simple reason. "I think it would fun!"
Her biggest concern has to do with perception: "Is it well known enough for the Canadian public to get behind it?"
Australia, one of the other non-European participants, joined in 2015 as a special guest of the contest, and then kept coming back, though it has never won. But Fricker notes that the contest was already popular there.
"We haven't been showing it for decades here, as was the case in Australia," she said. "People who come from European immigrant backgrounds might know it. I feel like youth culture kind of discovered it during the pandemic. But to average Canadians ... do they know about this thing? Do they care?"
Either way, participation would seem to be Canada's for the taking. Australia's inclusion 10 years ago raised some eyebrows. "There was a lot of talk about it at the time," Fricker said. "Like, this was completely bizarre. It's the other side of the world."
She continued: "But it's become a regular contender, and has done very well, come very close to winning a few times. So if Australia is doing it as an associate member, it would seem that Canada could too, if the EBU welcomes them to come."