{"id":669900,"date":"2026-05-14T23:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T23:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/669900\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T23:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T23:02:13","slug":"eurovision-director-says-door-is-open-for-canada-to-join-song-contest-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/669900\/","title":{"rendered":"Eurovision director says door is open for Canada to join song contest – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

The director of the Eurovision<\/a> Song Contest says the door is open for Canada to join the popular musical spectacle, but has not yet received a formal request after the federal government said last year it would \u201cexplore participation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s public broadcaster, however, confirmed to Global News that it is in talks with the European Broadcasting Union about closer collaboration and has sent observers to this year\u2019s contest.<\/p>\n

Eurovision director Martin Green told the BBC on Wednesday that \u201cnothing\u2019s particularly come over my desk\u201d from Canada but acknowledged \u201cwe are an open place\u201d for new participants outside of Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor 70 years, our doors have been open, and we will welcome anyone through those doors who wants to share the values of this wonderful occasion and stand on our stage with friends,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mark Carney has been seeking closer ties with Europe as it seeks to diversify from the United States, and the mention of Eurovision in last year\u2019s federal budget suggested those ties could extend beyond trade and security to culture.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

A line in the budget\u2019s section on the CBC<\/a> says the government is \u201cworking with CBC\/Radio-Canada to explore participation in Eurovision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that Mark Carney wants to sort of embrace Europe,\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t5:21
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFinance Minister Champagne breaks down \u2018generational\u2019 federal budget\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Carney has suggested Canada\u2019s participation in Eurovision<\/a> would be positive for both the country and Europe.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Get<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n

Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you’ll never miss the day’s top stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want Canadian culture on a global stage,\u201d he said shortly after the budget was tabled in November. \u201cBest culture in the world, best music in the world. I think Europe deserves to see it too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 70-year-old song contest<\/a> is an annual source of camp for a huge global audience that has sometimes been called Europe\u2019s version of the Super Bowl, with hundreds of millions of viewers tuning in each year.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

Canadian talent has been featured before, including a young Celine Dion, whose performance on behalf of a Switzerland-submitted song won the contest in 1988.<\/p>\n

However, Canada is not a full member of the European Broadcasting Union, the alliance of public media outlets that runs the show, and therefore cannot participate in the contest itself.<\/p>\n

Canada, through the CBC, is only an associate member of the EBU, but can join if formally invited. Other non-European nations have done so, including Australia, Cyprus and Israel.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMore on Entertainment
\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:05
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t5 countries boycotting Eurovision over Israel\u2019s participation\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Leon Mar, the senior director of public affairs for CBC\/Radio-Canada, told Global News that it has been in contact with the EBU and will have a presence at this year\u2019s contest, which is set to conclude with Saturday\u2019s finale in Vienna.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can confirm that we have three staff attending the ESC as observers and that we are talking with the EBU about how we can collaborate more closely and exchange more content, namely through the Eurovision News Exchange and the Euroradio Music Exchange,\u201d he said in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

Mar said the CBC has been an associate member of the EBU since 1950.<\/p>\n

Joining Eurovision was previously considered by CBC\/Radio-Canada in the past but was determined to be prohibitively expensive. The federal budget did not have a specific spending figure attached to participating in Eurovision.<\/p>\n

The contest is facing controversy this year due to previous winner Israel\u2019s participation, with five countries \u2014 Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Iceland \u2014 boycotting in protest due to Israel\u2019s military actions in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.<\/p>\n

Israel nevertheless advanced to the final this week alongside nine other countries.<\/p>\n

\u2014With files from Global\u2019s Sean Previl<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The director of the Eurovision Song Contest says the door is open for Canada to join the popular…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,75,79021,82992,44,3275],"class_list":["post-669900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-eurovision","tag-eurovision-song-contest","tag-news","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}