The last weekend of January 2010 marked the annual North American Debating Championships — a competition between the Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate (CUSID) and the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA). The competition was hosted this year by the joint efforts of the Osgoode Debating Society and the York Debating Society on North Toronto’s beautiful York University campus. With 80 teams (that’s 160 speakers!) competing for the title, there was some strong competition for the North American champion title. The final round, by happy coincidence, worked out to be a showdown between CUSID and APDA. Despite a valiant attempt made by McGill University team of Saro Setrakian & Sean Stefanik, the final round and the championship went to the MIT team of Adam Goldstein & Bill Magnuson.

Despite MIT claiming the victory for APDA, CUSID had a strong showing this year. In addition to the McGill finalists, CUSID’s team from UBC (Evan Choate & Joshua Sealy-Harrington) finished as semifinalists, teams from Queen’s University (Adam Hetherington & Christine Wadsworth) and another team from McGill University (Vinay Mysore & Sophie MacIntyre) finished as quarterfinalists, and two Hart House teams (Richard Lizius & George Trotter and John Ashbourne & Erin Fitzgerald) as well as another Queen’s team (Adrienne Lipsey & Mark Rubenstein) finished as octofinalists.

CUSID also secured the spots of top novice speaker (Tim Abdulla from McGill University), top novice team (Deirdre Casey & Sam Greene from Hart House), and 8 of the 10 top speaker positions:
#1 Richard Lizius (Hart House LT)
#2 Christine Wadsworth (Queen’s HW)
#3 Adam Hetherington (Queen’s HW)
#4 Adam Goldstein (MIT GM)
#5 Sean Stefanik (McGill SS)
#6 Saro Setrakian (McGill SS)
#7 John Ashbourne (Hart House AF)
#8 Sophie MacIntyre (McGill MM)
#9 Alex Campbell (Stanford CM)
#10 George Trotter (Hart House LT)

Overall, this was a good year for CUSID. Next, we’ll find out who Canada’s top debaters are at the National championships this March in Edmonton.

In the off chance you haven’t already noticed, the CUSID.ca site was re-launched today, with a new design and layout. Please bear with us as we transfer over all of the results and information from the old website. If you’re looking for the results, or the official CUSID documents, they’re still available at our old website located here.

Also, the site is now running the WordPress CMS, so feel free to sign up for an account. If you have any comments, criticisms, or suggestions, send me an email at ed@cusid.ca.

Hot on the heels of crowning Amy Marlene Robichaud Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister, the 2009 CUSID National Championships have recognized new National Champions. 54 teams from 18 schools competed at the event graciously hosted by the University of Saskatchewan Debate Society.

Richard Lizius and Paul-Erik “Dash” Veel of Hart House took home the gold, defeating McGill University’s Sophie MacIntyre & Jake Liang. The triumphant pair also took home Top Speaker awards, placing first and second respectively.

In Novice Finals, Mary MacPhail and Robert Lees-Miller from the University of Alberta defeated David Miko and Justen Russell from the University of Calgary. The Top Novice Speaker was the Royal Military College’s David Reid.

Triumphant in the East vs West showdown were Dalhousie’s Andrew McCoomb & Krum Dochev, who defeated the University of British Columbia’s Maria Jogova and Joshua Sealy.

Dan Powell of RMC became CUSID’s Top Public Speaker with a ballad detailing the exploits of the Dalhousie team, whose success against fierce opposition earned them the honorific “Dragonslayers”.

The new CUSID executive was also elected. Vinay Kumar Mysore of McGill University will be the 2009-2010 CUSID President, and joining him will be Brent Kettles from Osgoode Hall as Treasurer. Trinity College’s Mitchell Gerskup of will serve as CUSID’s new Executive Director. Iain Ireland and Ali Cherri will be serving as regional Vice-Presidents, joining Shaughnessy Hawkins, the sitting V-P Central. Many thanks to the outgoing executive.

Next year’s National Championships will be hosted by the University of Alberta, British Parliamentary Nationals by the University of British Columbia, and Toronto’s York University will host the North American Debating Championships.

On the eve of the 2009 CUSID National Debating Championships, the grand finale of the CBC’s Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister aired last night — and after a fierce debate hosted by Alex Trebek and judged by former Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney, Joe Clark, Kim Campbell and Paul Martin, Calgary native and University of Ottawa English Debating Society member Amy Marlene Robichaud won the competition and was awarded $50,000 and a paid internship.

Among other achievements, Amy has co-ordinated the English Debating Society’s 24 Hour Debate Challenge, raising hundreds of dollars for a shelter for battered women, and ranked as a public speaking finalist at tournaments as prestigious as Queen’s University and the CUSID British Parliamentary National Championships.

Congratulations Amy!

Amy was the second person to enter this season’s competition which began online when the CBC asked young Canadians, aged 18-25, to post a video to YouTube telling us what they would do to improve Canada politically, socially and economically. Candidates challenged one another’s platforms with additional videos. They also responded to weekly video challenges asking for their opinions on current affairs. Finally, ten semifinalists were selected to come to Toronto to compete head to head at political bootcamp where four finalists were selected to compete on the nationally televised show.

Link.

Congratulations to the new British Parliamentary National Champions, Richard Lizius and Ian Freeman. Representing the University of Toronto’s Hart House Debating Club, they prevailed over the Osgoode Hall team of Brent Kettles and Rudi M. Lof, the Hart House team of Monica Ferris and Lisa Jorgensen, and Vinay Kumar Mysore and Sophie MacIntyre from the McGill Debating Union. The championship round was chaired by Peter Milliken, and followed a delicious brunch.

The tournament also recognized Richard Lizius as the best speaker, McGill’s Sean Husband as the best novice speaker, and Seans Stefanik and Hayward, both also from McGill, as the joint best public speaker. Finally, McGill’s Calvin Rosemond and Joe Bricker were named Novice Champions at the tournament.

Many thanks to Queen’s University, fabulous hosts once more.