Music career in 1988 - 1993

In 1988, the RTL TV channel in Luxembourg invited Lara to represent the country at the 33rd Eurovision Song Contest, held that year in Dublin, Ireland. The song presented to Lara was a composition made by Jacques Cardona and Alain Garciac entitled Croire (Trust) and reached a respectful fourth place that night. The winning song belonged to Switzerland, whose singer was no other than Céline Dion with Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi. "Croire" became a big seller single that year in Europe reaching nearly 500.000 copies. Lara still performs Croire live today.

Upon finishing her studies (Lara was originally planing to devote her life to child criminology), in 1990 Lara travelled to Canada to promote her third single Je Sais and fell in love with the province of Quebec. In 1991, with two suitcases and $1,000 in her pocket, Lara moved to Montreal, Canada to embark on a career in North America. She began her own music label and publishing company, Productions Clandestines. She didn't leave Brussels all by herself, as her then friend and music collaborator Rick Allison had also left his native Belgium and travelled with Lara to an adventure which became Lara's rise to fame and her career so far. Rick first met Lara in a jazz bar in Brussels some years prior and was impressed by Lara's vocals on Ella Fitzgerald's Summertime. The pair worked steadily on writing and recording songs.

In 1991, Fabian's self-titled French-language debut album, Lara Fabian, which had been recorded earlier in Belgium, was released in Canada in August 1991 and sold over 100,000 copies. The debut album went on to be certified Gold in 1993 and then certified platinum the following year. The success of such upbeat Dance-pop singles like Le Jour Où Tu Partira, Les Murs, and Qui Pense à l'Amour gave Lara the exposure she needed on the radio. Lara received several nominations at the 1993 ADISQ awards and a poll published around that time revealed that Lara was considered Quebec's most promising singer.