The Heckler

2013-2014
In late December the McGill Debating Union sent a large
contingent to participate at the World University Debating
Championships (WUDC) in Chennai, India. The WUDC is largely
considered to be the globes most competitive university debating
tournament, and this year was no exception as Chennai hosted 340
teams, including schools from China, Russia, the United Kingdom,
Australia and North America. McGill sent two teams to the
tournament McGill A consisting of Sarah Balakrishnan and Cole
Bricker, and McGill B comprised of Roger Smith and Lewis Fainer.
McGill also sent Patricia Johnson-Castle, Daniel Milton and Howard
Cohen as adjudicators.
The tournament consists of 9 preliminary rounds of impromptu British
Parliamentary debate, with all teams receiving 15 minutes of
preparation time once the resolution has been released. After the 9
preliminary rounds are completed, the top 48 teams at the
tournament compete in elimination rounds of debate.

The MDU at Chennai Worlds
Howard Cohen (McGill Law) and
William Gibson (Queen's) break to
World's Master's Final as Team
Canada.
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McGill had a phenomenal year
at the WUDC. After the 9
preliminary rounds of debate,
McGill A finished as the fifth
placed team in the tournament
on 21 total team points (out of
a possible 27). This alone
represents the best finish by a
Canadian team in the
preliminary rounds in 10 years.
Unfortunately, McGill B narrowly
missed qualifying for the
elimination debates, finishing
on a very respectable 16
points. Aside from the schools
success in debating, Patricia
Johnson-Castle qualified as an
adjudicator for the
tournaments elimination
rounds a truly remarkable
accomplishment. Howard
Cohen qualified for the Master's
Final, with his partner Will
Gibson, as well as the Public
Speaking Final.
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In the elimination rounds Sarah
and Cole continued their
success, eventually losing to
Harvard and Sydney University
in the tournaments semi-final
the best finish by any Canadian
team since 2006, when
University of Toronto Law
students captured the title.
Sarah also finished as the
tournaments 10th speaker with
Cole placing 13th. This was a
remarkable showing by McGill,
but what the participants will
remember most fondly are the
long bus trips, the time spent in
the Taj Club House, and the
tournaments bat-infested
General Assembly.
Until next year in Malaysia,
- Cole, Sarah, Patricia, Roger,
Lewis, Daniel and Howard

Cole Bricker
and Sarah
Balakrishnan
(McGill A)
break 5
th

Above: Sarah, Cole, Lewis, Veenu (Hart
House), and Roger
Below: Daniel, Joe (MDU alum), Cole,
and Lewis

The MDU will be sending 3
teams and 2 judges to
Malaysia Worlds in 2014:
McGill A: Denizhan Uykur
and Daniel Milton
McGill B: Howard Cohen
and Caleb Guthrie
McGill C: Jamie Sherwin and
Amber Zhao
Judges: Mwanza
Tshimbalanga and Holly
Engstrom


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The MDU hosted five
successful
tournaments over
the course of the
school year.
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During the 2013-2014 school year, the McGill Debating Union
successfully hosted five tournaments. This feat surely would not
have been possible without the hard work of our dedicated club
members. Thank you to everyone to served on the organizing
committee for a tournament this year!
Back in September, our club hosted the CUSID Central Novice
Championships. This tournament is exclusively for novice debaters
and is typically the first opportunity for freshman to compete in
the university circuit. We welcomed over two hundred university
students to Montreal and started off the year with a bang.
Our next tournament was the annual McGill Debating Union High
School Championships. This event took place in the British
Parliamentary Style and had over one hundred teams compete.
Our high school competition is a great opportunity for high school
students to visit McGill University and our club members love the
chance to mentor the next generation of debaters.
In second semester, the Debating Union hosted the third annual
Coupe Laurier. This tournament is quite significant to our club, as
it's our only French language competition. SUCDI has offered so
much to the McGill Debating Union and our club members truly
appreciate the opportunity to give back.
Tournaments
2013-2014
(continued)
Alum Natalya (left) returns to help out at
Winter Carnival 2014 and visit old friends
like Elizabeth (right).
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Thank you to our 2013-2014
tournament directors:

Annie Xie and Tim Radcliffe CUSID
Central Novice Championship

Esther Vinarov and Herie Sun
McGill High School Debating
Championship

Jason Lamb and Julia
Brocklehurst
Coupe Laurier

Ezra Cohen and Tim Radcliffe
Winter Carnival

Jamie Sherwin and Ben Tang
Spring Bonanza High School
Tournament

Hannah Cohen and Patricia
Johnson-Castle
North American Women's
Debating Championship

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Just one weekend after Coupe Laurier came Winter Carnival. Our
storied Canadian Parliamentary competition drew debaters from
across the country. There was never a dull moment as CUSIDs best
debaters ran their own unique cases and tried to come out on top.
Finally, the Debating Union decided that the high school community
needed more Canadian Parliamentary events, so we capped off
the year with the McGill Debating Union Spring Bonanza. At this
event, our first year debaters took center stage. The organizational
committee for the tournament was made up entirely of novices, who
were able to run an incredibly successful event.
The experiences that our club members gained this year will be
invaluable moving forward. The Debating Union will be hosting the
CUSID National Championships next spring for the first time since
2004. We are looking forward to putting the skills we learned this year
on display for a national audience. All help would be appreciated!
- Lewis
A McGill Debating Union Thanksgiving
This past October we celebrated MDU Thanksgiving. I hosted a
Thanksgiving potluck at my apartment for debaters who couldnt get
home for the holiday. Despite the turkey taking far too many hours to
cook, we had a great time! Many of our novices came out to
celebrate or just to escape rez food for a night. There were so many
people that we couldnt all fit in the apartment. For a debate event
there was remarkably little arguing. At the end of the evening,
everyone sat in a big circle and while we ate dinner, each person
shared something for which they were thankful. Many people spoke
about how thankful they are to have a found a community that is as
close as the Debating Union. For those debaters who could not be
with their families, it was nice to have a supportive group of people
around for Thanksgiving.
-Colleen
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1
Novices! Oh the
places they go!

2013-2014 Tournament
Results

This the McGill Novice class cleaned
up in CUSID and the states. To start
off the year Holly and Barbora broke
first at CUSID Central Novice,
speaking to 4th and 3rd place
respectively and reaching semi-finals,
along with Tim Logan and Molly.
Additionally, Liam (Junior) Mather
won the 8th place speaker award.
Sarah M. and Amber, Oliver and
Mishal, Julia and Jon, Mimi and Eric
were all quarter-finalists.
The weekend after Novice, the MDU
headed down state-side to the Yale
Inter-Varsity (IV) tournament in New
Haven, CT. Cole and Sarah broke to
quarters in the varsity category,
Oliver and Tim Logan broke to the
Novice Final. After the preliminary
rounds, Oliver was ranked the third
place novice speaker at the
tournament (right behind the pair of
Harvard novices who broke in the
varsity break).
The first annual North American BP
Debate Championship, hosted by
Hart House at the University of
Toronto, was a great tournament for
McGill! Lewis and Roger were
quarter- finalists, Sarah and Cole
went on to be tournament
champions! Novices Jamie and
Amber also claimed the Novice
Championship tfor McGill. Jamie and
Amber faced teams from Yale,
Swathmore and Rochester in the
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Novice Final, after they broke third.
Jamie ended the tournament as the
5th novice speaker, Amber close by
as 6th.
On the first weekend of November,
McGill sent to contingents to
Burlington, Vermont and Kingston,
Ontario. At the Huber Debates at the
University of Vermont, Genevieve
and Tim were Novice Champions. In
Kingston, at the Chancellor's Cup
(hosted annually by Queen's
University), both Amber and Mishal
and Hannah Hu and Stephanie
Gagnon broke to the Novice Final.
Amber and Mishal took the novice
championship title home for McGill.
At the Father Roger Guindon Cup,
Holly and Liam were novice finalists.
Varsity-wise, Lewis and Caleb were
semi-finalists, Sarah and Denizhan
and Tim and Ezra were finalists, and
Mwanza and Shakil were partial-
quarter finalists. Daniel Milton was the
public speaking champion.
At the final tournament of the British
Parliamentary semester, Canadian
BP Champs, Sarah and Cole again
came home as champions! Jamie
and Barb also broke first in the novice
category, and Amber (hybriding with
Daryna of Hart House) broke 4
th
,
ultimately taking the title of novice
champion.
At the Seagram Pro/Am tournament,
the teams of Roger and Valentin and
Daniel and Oliver were tied on
win/loss and speaker score for 8th
place team. To determine who
should advance they participated in
a Skordoff debate. Ultimately, Daniel
and Oliver joined Amber and Sarah
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as quarter-finalists at the tournament.
At North American Women's
Debating Championship, the MDU
women came out in full force. While
McGill hosted the tournament, we let
novice and second year women
debate. Genevieve and Amber
broke 4th in the varsity break,
following close behind were Virginia
and Julia (7th), and Holly with her
partner Katrina from University of
Western Ontario (8th) (all novices!). In
the Novice Final were Isabel and Issy
and Hannah H. and Mimi. Isabel and
Issy went on to be the Novice
Champions! Virginia was the 10th
place varsity speaker and 1st place
novice speaker, Genevieve was 2nd
place novice speaker, and Amber
and Issy tied for third place novice
speaker.
At the Colgate Open, Justin and
Cillian broke as novices in the varsity
break and made it all the way to the
varsity final! McGill was represented
in the Novice Final by Hannah Hu
and Amber, and Valentin and Isabel.
Isabel and Val took home the title of
novice champion. Justin was the first
place novice speaker, while Amber
and Holly tied for 3rd place novice
speaker.
Justin Kieran made significant in-
roads as a novice judge this year!
Breaking at BP Champs, CUSID/APDA
NorthAms, Leger Cup, and CUSID
Nationals.
We are all excited to see what the
2014-2015 season will hold!
Patricia



1
Highlights of the Year
There are two single moments that I
mark as my initiation points into the
McGill Debating Union: the first was
spent in breaths of tense anticipation
in a decorative wooden hall at the
University of Toronto while we
watched our top team in the Hart
House Tournaments finals. We felt a
double sense of pride: pride for those
members individual successes, and
also for the satisfaction we shared as
a team and as friends. We won that
tournament, and no school cheered
as loud as we did.
The second was at a post-
tournament McGill wine and cheese
party months later. The apartment
was a little too crowded, and we
had all drunk a little too much wine.
The crowd in the kitchen shuffled, still
arguing and laughing, into the living
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room where the individual speech
competition started, each
competitor standing on a wobbly
chair in the middle of the room to
grab the attention of those sprawled
across chairs and wooden
floorboards, although, true to
debater temperament, corner
conversations continued. The last
speaker ended his address,
expressing a cry of gratitude and
appreciation for the club he always
felt was the most inclusive, and we all
cheered, our pride resurfacing.
Of these two events revealing the
Debating Unions passion and
dedication, one was public, one was
nuclear. One competitive, the other
friendly. Both exemplary.
- Virginia

Above: McGill before the Hart House
banquet
Below: MDU Wine and Cheese
North American Womens Debate
Championship
On February 15th and 16th, the MDU hosted the largest ever North
American Women's Debate Championship, with a great diversity
of teams from across Canada and the US. The tournament
directors, Hannah Cohen and myself, put a lot of time and effort
into making sure the 5th annual NorthAm Women's was the best
one yet. We collaborated with Sarah Balakrishnan, the chief-
adjudicator, to reach out to female alumni of CUSID and the MDU
to judge the tournament. We also made a concerted effort to get
more American involvement at the tournament. This was achieved
through networking, making announcement at American
tournaments and with the aid of Mariel Golden (University of
Vermont) our American deputy-chief-adjudicator.
.
Issy and Isabel after winning the
Novice Final
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Teams from Colgate University, Dalhousie University,
Queen's University, Hart House, Wilfred Laurier University,
McGill University, University of Western Ontario, the
Claremont Colleges, Florida International University,
Carleton University, Middlebury College, University of
Ottawa, Universit de Montral, Marianopolis College,
McMaster University, and University of Vermont. Temple
University, the King's College New York, and New York
University also planned on attending but were unable due
to a snowstorm.
Special thanks to McGill alumni Emma O'Rourke-Friel,
Sophie MacIntyre, Megan Vandenhof and Gretchen
McCulloch for coming out to judge. We would also like to
thank Yumi Rahman, Buzz Klinger, and James Hardy. I
would again like to thank my tireless co-TD Hannah Cohen.
Hannah did a lot of behind the scenes work; she really was
the grease on the wheels for the whole event. We had a
great organizing committee to help us out!
No McGill women have to pay to attend NorthAm
Women's because money has been ear-marked by donors
in the past few years for this purpose. We need help from
alumni to keep this important tradition alive. Please donate
to the McGill Debating Union, specifying that the donation
is for the Women's tournament.
- Patricia
The motions debated at the
tournament were:
Rd 1: THW ban religious and ethnic parties from
running for election in developing
democracies.
Rd. 2: TH regrets the commercialization and
mainstream popularization of graffiti.
Rd. 3: THB that NATO should maintain a
standing army, to which all members must
contribute a minimum number of troops.
Rd. 4: TH prefers a society with an active court
of public opinion to one without.
Rd. 5: THW ban employers from creating
contracts that prohibit employees from
expressing their political opinions publicly.
Novice Final/Semifinal: THBT it is in the interest of
minority rights groups (e.g. LGBTQ, women,
racial minorities, etc.) to join forces in common
protest rather than separately advocate for
their individual interests.
Final: TH - being the US government - has
determined that the largest of several Ukrainian
opposition groups (UDAR) is imminently
launching a violent coup against the Ukrainian
government. THW warn the Ukrainian
government.
Left: Virginia, semifinalist, top novice
speaker, 10
th
overall speaker
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Passing the Torch
Lewis Fainer
President
Patricia Johnson-Castle
Vice-President
Sarah Balakrishnan
Chair of Debates
Tim Radcliffe
Secretary
Denizhan Uykur
Treasurer
Shakil Nagji
External Tournaments Coordinator
Alex Langer
Chair of Exhibition Debates
Ezra Cohen
Chair of Publicity
Jason Lamb
Chair of French Debates
Colleen Chase McCutcheon
Member at Large
Justin Kieran
Novice Member at Large

Denizhan Uykur
President
Tim Radcliffe
Vice-President
Cole Bricker
Chair of Debates
Virginia Shram
Secretary
Valentin Litvin
Treasurer
Holly Engstrom
External Tournaments Coordinator
Jamie Sherwin
Chair of Exhibition Debates
Mimi Scowen
Chair of Publicity
Julia Brocklehurst
Chair of French Debates
Genevieve Riccoboni
Member at Large
Jesse Bartsoff
Novice Member at Large
Thank you to the 2013-2014
executives for all long hours they put
in to making sure we had such a
successful year!
and welcoming the executives for
the 2014-2015 academic year!
Please donate to the McGill Debating Union. We are one of the largest, most competitive unions in the world,
ranking 9th in the most recent WUDC rankings. This puts us ahead of such schools as Harvard, Princeton, London
School of Economics, University of New South Wales and Stanford. The cuts in education spending in Quebec,
and the cost of gas, rentals and registration fees severely limits the amount of teams we are able to send to
tournaments and the amount of tournaments we are able to attend. Help us keep our ranking.
Donate to the McGill Debating Union today!
Donations are made through Martlet House (514-398-5000).