Canada has its shortlist for its first Eurovision Song Contest. CBC/Radio-Canada named five finalists on 27 October: William Cloutier, Josiane, Rêve, Talk and Tyler Shaw. The public now picks the winner, who will represent Canada at Eurovision 2027 in Bulgaria next May.
Two of the five come with a Quebec connection. Rêve, the dance-pop artist born Briannah Donolo, was born and raised in Montreal and is now based in Toronto. Since 2021 she has passed 175 million global streams with songs including “CTRL + ALT + DEL”, “Big Boom”, “Contemporary Love” and “Whitney”, which reached number one on American dance radio. Her music has turned up on Canada’s Drag Race, Love Island, Just Dance and EA Sports FC.
William Cloutier won Mixmania at 16 and took Star Académie in 2021. His 2022 album On ira was nominated for Album of the Year at the ADISQ gala, and his 2025 album L’amour included the single “Où on dansait autrefois”. He has also played Johnny Rockfort in the French-language musical Starmania more than 360 times in Europe and Quebec.
Josiane, an Acadian singer-songwriter from Dieppe, New Brunswick, won La Voix in 2020 and signed with Musicor and Parlophone France. She writes in French, English and Chiac; her debut album Take Care came out in March. Ottawa’s Talk won the JUNO for Breakthrough Artist in 2024 after “Run Away to Mars” and the album Lord of the Flies & Birds & Bees, and has played Osheaga. His concept album The Ballad of Ozzy Moon is due early in 2027. Vancouver-born Tyler Shaw broke through with “Kiss Goodnight” in 2012; his 2025 single “Fire” with Polish producer Gromee went to number one in Poland.
The selection started with 325 applications, submitted between 31 August and 9 September. CBC/Radio-Canada’s music teams cut that to 15, and a jury chose the final five at a meeting in Toronto on 8 October. The jury included Montreal festival programmer Maurin Auxéméry, choreographer Sam Chouinard, television music director Orin Isaacs, Eurovision specialist Shawn Myers and soprano Élisabeth St-Gelais, along with CBC’s Douglas Smith and Radio-Canada’s Dany Meloul.
Voting is open at CBC.ca/eurovision until 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on Thursday 5 November, with up to 10 votes per person. PricewaterhouseCoopers is overseeing the count, and the winner will be announced by December.
Canada confirmed in July that it would compete, after the European Broadcasting Union made CBC/Radio-Canada a full member. The idea first appeared in the federal budget Mark Carney’s Liberals tabled last November.
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