CBC and Radio-Canada named William Cloutier, Josiane, Rêve, Talk and Tyler Shaw on Tuesday as the five Canada Eurovision 2027 finalists in Canada’s Choice.
The names were revealed on Tuesday, October 27 in the Eurovision Song Contest: Canada’s Choice special at 3 p.m. ET from Toronto, carried on CBC TV, ICI Télé and CBC News Network and streamed on CBC Gem, ICI TOU.TV and YouTube. The five come from a field of 325 submissions filed between August 31 and September 9. CBC and Radio-Canada music teams cut that field to 15 contenders, and an expert jury picked the final five at a meeting in Toronto on October 8. iimiTV set out how the selection works ahead of the reveal in CBC Unveils Canada Eurovision 2027 Finalists Tuesday.
Watch the official Canada’s Choice reveal from CBC:
Meet the Five Canada Eurovision 2027 Finalists
The five finalists cover a wide stretch of Canadian pop: French language theatre pop, Acadian bilingual songwriting, Montreal dance pop, Ottawa rock theatre and a Richmond singer-songwriter with a decade of hits. Each one was judged on the Eurovision criteria the jury published: vocal quality, stage presence, artistic experience and international potential.
William Cloutier is a pop singer from Victoriaville, Quebec with a theatre background that includes Starmania. He won Star Académie in 2021 and has released two albums since: On ira, which earned an ADISQ nomination for pop album of the year, and L’amour, released in 2025. He pointed new listeners to Nous, a ballad that shows his vocal range, and said his stage years are his Eurovision preparation: “I’ve performed in big productions, which has prepared me to sing under pressure, to handle the stress and still remain connected and loyal to the audience.”
Josiane, full name Josiane Comeau, is an Acadian pop singer from Moncton, New Brunswick. She won La Voix, the French language edition of The Voice, in 2020 and signed with Parlophone and Warner Music. Her debut album Take Care arrived in March, and she named Take Care of You, a song written for a younger version of herself, as the track that explains her. At the reveal she spoke about carrying her Chiac accent and both official languages onto that stage: “Getting to represent my Acadian culture, it’s just a small place in New Brunswick that not a lot of people know, especially in Europe, and to be able to blend English and French, representing Canada in both of the country’s official languages, would make me so proud.”
Rêve, real name Briannah Donolo, is a JUNO Award winning dance artist from Montreal who started out singing in hometown bars and clubs. Her calling cards are Ctrl + Alt + Del, which won the JUNO for Dance Recording of the Year, and Devour, and she has followed Eurovision for a decade. She framed her case around the team behind the singer: “The focus is really about highlighting all of the incredible creatives that we have in Canada. Our goal is to keep the story as Canadian as possible, and it’s not just the music, it’s not just the writers, it’s the costume designers, the people helping with staging, the people helping with training.”
Talk, real name Nicholas Durocher, is an Ottawa singer-songwriter whose theatrical rock sound broke through with Run Away to Mars. He won the JUNO for Breakthrough Artist of the Year in 2024 and draws more than two million monthly listeners on Spotify. He sent new listeners to Goodbye Forever, which he called very dramatic, bold and full of life, and made the bluntest pitch of the day: “I want to be powerful and emotional and connecting with people. I really think this opportunity was built for me, and I’m ready to win.”
Tyler Shaw is a singer-songwriter from Richmond, British Columbia with five albums and four JUNO nominations across a 14 year run from open mic nights to arena stages. His romantic version of Love You Still has passed 100 million streams on Spotify. He named With You as his calling card because it shows his singing in both English and French, and set out a simple aim for Bulgaria: to take the crowd on an emotional journey. “The authenticity of my music and who I am as a person, it really shines through no matter where I am,” he said at the reveal.
How the Canada Eurovision 2027 Winner Gets Picked
These are finalists, not a winner, and there is no Canadian Eurovision song yet. Canada’s Choice picks the artist first. Public voting is open now to people in Canada at the Canada’s Choice voting site, where videos featuring each finalist are posted. Voters can cast one vote per day until voting closes on November 5 at 11:59 p.m. PT, up to 10 votes in total, and the first vote is confirmed by email. The final decision is entirely in the hands of the public: the artist with the most votes wins, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP is the official auditor overseeing the voting system and the tabulation of results, and the winner is to be announced by December.
The jury that chose the five finalists mixed music industry professionals with the broadcasters’ own executives: Maurin Auxéméry of the Montreal International Jazz Festival, choreographer Sam Chouinard, television composer Orin Isaacs, social media strategist and Eurovision specialist Shawn Myers, soprano Élisabeth St-Gelais, CBC executive vice-president Douglas Smith and Radio-Canada executive vice-president Dany Meloul. CBC executive Jennifer Dettman told the press conference what the reveal was meant to signal: “What we wanted to do today was to show Canada and the world…we mean business, that this is how we’re gonna show up for Eurovision, and we’re excited to take part.”
Once the winner is chosen, the song gets built. The winning artist will work with CBC, Radio-Canada and music industry professionals to create Canada’s entry and its stage performance, and the finished song will carry lyrics in both English and French, whoever wins. That artist first, song second order is the defining choice of this debut selection, and it is why the vote is about live ability and presence rather than a finished record.
What Happens Between Now and Burgas
The winner represents Canada at the 71st Eurovision Song Contest at Arena Burgas in Burgas, Bulgaria, with semi-finals on May 11 and 13, 2027 and the grand final on May 15. Canada is the first country to debut at Eurovision since Australia in 2015, and there is no automatic place in the final: the Canadian act has to qualify out of its semi-final like every other country in its half of the draw.
Canadian voices have reached that stage before under other flags, from Céline Dion winning for Switzerland in 1988 to La Zarra singing for France in 2023. Next May the flag beside the name is Canada’s own for the first time. The next ten days decide whose name goes beside it: watch the five finalists, vote once a day until November 5, and iimiTV will follow the count, the winner announcement and the song as it gets built toward Burgas.
