Hello CUSID,

After a rather entertaining WUDC (at least for the onlooker from afar), we enter the second half of our 2013-14 Debating Season. This means the start of Canadian Parliamentary season, everyone’s favourite format! Look forward to fun-filled tournaments such as Winter Carnival at McGill and NorthAms.

Before the fun begins, however, we must offer congratulations to everyone from CUSID who participated at the World Universities Debating Championships in Chennai, India. Particularly, congratulations to the team from McGill A, Cole Bricker and Sarah Balakrishnan, for making the semi-finals. They have made the entire CUSID community incredibly proud. We must further congratulate Sarah Balakrishnan for placing 10th overall in the speaker rankings, and Cole for placing 13th.

As well, congratulations to the other breaking CUSID teams: Hart House A, Sam Greene and Veenu Goswami; and Western A, Victoria Hale and Brent Schmidt.

Full WUDC Tab.

If you wish to read a report of the tumultuous events that took place at this years WUDC, it can be found here:
http://globaldebateblog.blogspot.ca/2014/01/chennai-wudc-report-from-afar-and.html

With that, let the second semester begin – hope it is as much fun as the last.

Hello CUSID,

We are already over a month into the school year and the CUSID season is still young. The first tournament of the year was the CUSID Central Novice Championships, hosted by the McGill Debating Union over the weekend of September 27th. It was, by all accounts, an exciting and interesting tournament featuring some of the best novices CUSID has to offer, but the championship title ended up going to Western’s Katrina Dods and Sam Shadowitz. Congratulations to them, and thanks to all the other teams who make CUSID great. Find out more information on the Results page on in the tournament thread.

The second tournament of note was not a CUSID tournament, but well attended by CUSID schools: Yale IV. CUSID had a very strong showing from teams in all three regions, and were made especially proud by the two finalist teams from Hart House, Aislin Flynn and Louis Tsilivis, and Sam Greene and Veenu Goswami. Congratulations to them for their superb performance, as well as to 4th speaker Sarah Balakrishnan from McGill. Full team and speaker rankings can be found here on APDAweb.

Finally, next weekend marks the date for the North American BP Debating Championships, also known as Hart House IV. This inaugural championship tournament will feature teams from as far as California, Louisiana, Colorado, British Columbia, and Canada’s East Coast competing against teams from Ontario, Quebec, and New England. The quality of debate will be high, and much fun will be had. Stay tuned for further updates and news in this regard. Make sure to check out the tournament thread on CUSIDnet for a schedule and more information.

CUSID.ca is about to undergo huge changes! But before it does, the Executive would like your input. What kind of features do the site and community need? The website can only meet the needs of the community if the community makes its voice head. So live up to your debate skills and make your voice heard!

You can do so in the comment section below;

Or click here to head on over to our Community for a more in-depth discussion.

As per request from the 2013 CUSID AGM, National Ombudsperson Devon Black has provided us with her Report to the Executive for the careful consideration of the general membership. As such, the report has been uploaded to CUSIDnet, everyone is encouraged to read it and consider the issues outlined within. Discussion in regards to the report can take place on the CUSIDnet forums, particularly the Equity and Diversity forum.

Please click here to view the report.

Stay tuned for further updates to the status of the CUSID website.

McGill University dominated the 2009-2010 CUSID National Championship, held March 19th-21st at the University of Alberta. Vinay Kumar Mysore and Sophie MacIntyre defeated Saro Setrakian and Sean Stefanik in an all-McGill final round, while McGill’s John Clarke and Tim Abdulla narrowly lost a contentious Novice final round to Deirdre Casey and Sam Greene, representing the Hart House Debating Club from the University of Toronto.

Semifinals were contested by Jake Liang and Bryce Balcom (McGill) and Rudi M. Lof and R. Brent Kettles (Osgoode Hall), and McGill (W. Calvin Rosemond and Joeseph Bricker), Dalhousie (Ali Cherri and Max Rau), UBC (Evan Choate and Joshua Sealy-Harrington) and Toronto (John Ashbourne and George Trotter) finished as Quarterfinalists.

Mr. Stefanik was top speaker, Mr. Abdulla was top novice speaker, and Christopher McMillan from Calgary was crowned best public speaker.