Canada Reads: debate dates

Canada’s biggest book debate is compressed into four days this year: Canada Reads 2026 runs from Monday, April 13, to Thursday, April 16, with one book eliminated each day until a winner is picked on the final broadcast. CBC says the debates air at 10 a.m. Eastern Time on CBC Radio, stream live on CBC Listen, CBC Gem, CBC Books, and YouTube, and replay at 1 p.m. Eastern on CBC Television. (cbc.ca) This is the 25th edition of Canada Reads, and the format is still basically literary Survivor: five public figures each defend one Canadian book, then the panel votes titles off one by one. The program started in 2002, and CBC says the first winner was Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion. (cbc.ca) The 2026 theme is “One Book to Build Bridges,” which means the arguments are not just about prose style or plot. CBC framed this year’s contest around books that connect people across difference, so the panelists will be debating what kind of story can travel furthest in a divided country. (cbc.ca) The five books are spread across very different kinds of fiction. Billy-Ray Belcourt’s A Minor Chorus is defended by actor and filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Tyler Hellard’s Searching for Terry Punchout by hockey commentator Steve “Dangle” Glynn, Loghan Paylor’s The Cure for Drowning by singer Tegan Quin, Iain Reid’s Foe by actor Josh Dela Cruz, and Joss Richard’s It’s Different This Time by book creator Morgann Book. (cbc.ca) The celebrity advocate is the engine of the show, because Canada Reads is built less like a prize jury and more like a courtroom. A book can surge because its champion lands a clean argument on accessibility, urgency, or national relevance, even if another panelist prefers a different writing style. (thecanadianencyclopedia.ca) That structure has real sales power. CBC says every Canada Reads finalist for the past 10 years has landed on Canadian bestseller lists after the shortlist announcement, and many of those books stayed there for months. (cbc.ca) Last year showed what that boost can do. Canada Reads 2025 ended on March 20, 2025, with A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby, written with Mary Louisa Plummer, winning in a 3-to-2 final vote over Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew. (quillandquire.com) So the dates matter beyond the broadcast grid. From April 13 through April 16, five books will get the kind of concentrated national attention that most novels never see, and by Thursday one of them will leave with the “must-read” label that Canada’s publishing industry watches every year. (cbc.ca)