Furtado, O'Neil And Surprises Promised For Final Canadian Idol Show

The winner of this season's Canadian Idol has already been decided. But if we told you who won, we'd have to kill you. Actually, we don't know who the victor is, but CTV informs us that it was the closest vote ever.

By the time the eastern voting window closed at 11 p.m. EDT after the show's final performance episode on Monday, finalists Eva Avila and Craig Sharpe were in a virtual tie. But western Canada determined the champion, who beat the challenger by 131,000 votes out of the nearly four million cast. That's a winning margin of 3.3 per cent for you statistics geeks.

After 12,173 auditions, 31 episodes and 36,354,969 votes, the winner will be announced as part of Idol's 90-minute season finale that airs at 7 p.m. EDT on CTV.

Avila, 19, and Sharpe, 16, will duet together as well as perform solo on the show. They'll be joined by the other contestants who made the final 10 to perform several group numbers as well as what will surely be a drool-inducing six-minute medley of hits from George Michael, Macy Gray, Elton John, Simple Minds, Heart and Led Zeppelin. Nelly Furtado will perform "Maneater," 2005 Idol Melissa O'Neil will perform "Speechless," and the African Children's Choir will also sing on the program.

You'll have to watch the end of the show to find out a "surprise" from two of the special guests featured earlier in the season. Maybe Tony Bennett and Martina McBride will admit that they're having an affair. Or perhaps Dennis DeYoung and Roger Hodgson will do the same thing. Whatever the surprise is, the anticipation is already reaching a fever pitch.

Once the winner is announced, that person will be given one of the highest honours that can be accorded to a Canadian teenager: the opportunity to sing the Chantal Kreviazuk-written "Meant To Fly."

The song will be released to radio at 12:01 a.m. on Monday by Sony BMG, the company that has a deal with Idol winners to try and transform them from reality television fodder into real live recording stars. Work will begin on an album next week, and it will arrive in stores in time to be stuffed into Christmas stockings.