Fall-Winter 2010

For more than 80 years, the members of the McGill Debating Union, one of the University’s oldest and most successful student clubs, have been persuasively prize-worthy.

by Joel Yanofsky, BA’77, MA’81

On the McGill Debating Union’s first night of novice training, Calvin Rosemond is arguing eloquently on behalf of the MDU. “Joining was the best decision I’ve made at McGill,” the third-year political science and international development student says. This isn’t a debate, though it may as well be. Be it resolved—in other words—if you’re going to join one club at McGill, this is the one.

The 16 students Rosemond is addressing are all newbies to the world of debating and they’re looking a little anxious, having just learned that they’ll be participating in a practice round—an actual debate, that is—before the evening is done. But Rosemond, who spent three weeks last summer in China teaching debate to future Chinese leaders, is nothing if not confident. “Debating is a skill you use every day,” he says. “You’re always trying to convince someone of something.”

On this night, he’s not alone—convincing is going on  throughout a nondescript office building across the street from McGill’s main campus. A couple of dozen MDU veterans, like Rosemond, are introducing 140 potential future teammates to the rules of British Parliamentary- style debating. And there are lots of rules to learn—some convoluted, some quaint, some both.

For instance, if you are interrupting a speaker with a point of information (POI), you stand, place your left hand on your head (to hold your Parliamentary wig in place), and extend your right hand, palm up (to show you don’t have a weapon). Throughout the session, Rosemond and his sometime teammate, and, tonight, his novice training partner, Nicole Gileadi, patiently take questions about everything from name-calling (“No, you can’t say your opponent is stupid”) to truth-telling (“Arguments matter more than facts”).

During the session, Rosemond and Gileadi, a third-year student in international development, also do their best
to be reassuring. Gileadi tells the group more than once that there’s no reason to feel intimidated. Meanwhile, Rosemond emphasizes the club’s casual approach. “It’s entirely up to you,” he says. “You can do as much or as little competitive debating as you want.”

If the MDU’s storied history is any guide to the future, chances are that at least some of these nervous newcomers to the world of competitive debating will soon be transformed into word warriors.

A Tradition of Triumphs

Last year, teams from McGill made it into the finals of every tournament at which they competed. In the Canadian National Championships last spring, McGill accounted for six of the teams in the quarter-finals, three of the teams in the semi-finals, and both of the finalists. Sean Stefanik, a third-year political science and history student and the current MDU president, was named the tournament’s top speaker. McGill also had the tournament’s top novice debater, Tim Abdulla, a second-year economics and computer science student, as well as a team in the novice final. Rosemond expects the MDU to be even stronger at this year’s nationals. When it comes to tournament debating, McGill is the equivalent of the New York Yankees. They dominate. MDU members have won at least one of the  top prizes (for team or individual performance) at the Canadian championships in four out of the last five years.

“Even when we lose tournaments, it’s usually to people who did their undergrad degrees here, who learned to debate here. They’re still repping McGill,” Rosemond explains. Case in point: Jessica Prince, BA’06, named the top speaker at the 2007 world championships while representing Oxford, is a proud MDU alumna.

A former football player, Rosemond had to give up competitive sports because of a hip injury. But he’s learned that debating takes a toll, too. Everyone gets trounced eventually and publicly. “There’s nothing else I’ve competed in where, at the end of the day, you have a rank next to your name that says exactly how well or poorly you did. It would be like posting all your grades. I mean, this is your intelligence we’re talking about. It can be heartbreaking for some people.”

But this is a night for recruiting, so neither humiliation nor heartbreak are mentioned. Not surprisingly, Rosemond and Gileadi are just doing what practised debaters do: casting their side in an inarguably positive light.

In debating, degree of difficulty counts. The harder the case you have to make, the more credit you are likely to be given for your effort. You can lose, in other words, and still win. Tonight, Rosemond and Gileadi may have this in mind. They aren’t just arguing that joining the MDU is an effective way to pad your CV and impress future grad schools or employers, not merely a sure-fire method for improving your skills at public speaking, even organizing essays, though it is all that; the real reason to debate at McGill is because it’s fun and—be it resolved—kind of cool.

All-star Alums

Fun was probably not what John Peters Humphrey, BCom’25, BA’27, BCL’29, PhD’45, LLD’76, had in mind when he founded the MDU in 1927. However, if he was aiming to create something that would be venerable and enduring, his success, nearly a century later, is not open to debate. The MDU’s long list of distinguished grads reads like a North American who’s who of government, law,  and business. Humphrey himself is remembered for penning the first draft of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Other prominent MDU grads include Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Leonard Cohen, BA’55, DLitt’92, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Charles Krauthammer, BA’70, DLitt’93, Trudeau Foundation chair Roy Heenan, BA’57, BCL’60, LLD’08, and media moguls Moses Znaimer, BA’63, (CityTv, Zoomer) and Mortimer Zuckerman,  BA’57, BCL’61 (US News & World Report, New York Daily News).

Another MDU alumnus is Liberal MP and official opposition critic for youth, citizenship and immigration Justin Trudeau, BA’94. “It ended up being a great way of getting involved in university life, in McGill culture,” Trudeau says of his time with the MDU. Trudeau was only in the MDU for a year. “I discovered I had a serious limitation for either a debater or a lawyer. I wasn’t able to argue for something I didn’t passionately believe in.”

Even so, he had his moments. “I remember winning a debate in French, which required me to take off my shirt at some point. I was trying to prove that Montreal had a freer spirit than Toronto. Something silly like that.”

There is no question that debating skills come in handy when you’re pursuing a career in law. The MDU boasts not one, but two former members who currently earn their keep as justices on Canada’s Supreme Court—Ian Binnie, BA’60, LLD’01, and Morris Fish, BA’59, BCL’62, LLD’01. “[The MDU] had a huge learning impact on me,” Binnie says. “After all, most of what lawyers or anyone else in the commercial world does is oral advocacy.” Fish, who was MDU president in 1959, is quick to agree. “Our background in debate has served both of us well.”

Focused on the Future

On the theory, perhaps, that you never know where the next Supreme Court justice is coming from, the MDU annually hosts one of the biggest and oldest—it’s been around 51 years—high school debating tournaments in the country. It routinely attracts more than 100 teams from across Canada. The tournament not only raises funds for the MDU, it raises McGill’s profile, attracting a highly motivated pool of future students, not to mention promising debaters. “I came to the high school tournament from Toronto in grade 11 and 12,” says MDU president Stefanik. “I liked the campus and I know that experience was one of the things that drew me to attend university here.”

“I mean, this is your intelligence [that's being ranked]. It can be heartbreaking for some people” – Calvin Rosemond

Another MDU draw is the club’s environment, which is at once demanding and welcoming. Christopher Wayland, BA’91, BCL’95, LLB’95, a Toronto litigator with McCarthy Tétrault, won the World University Debating Championships in 1991 along with his partner, Mona Gupta, BSc’91, MDCM’95, and he’s pretty sure his tournament success helped him get into the law school of his choice.

“Later, too, when I was applying for summer jobs at law firms, it was something my employers were interested in. But, if I think back on my time as a McGill undergrad, what I remember is that most of my social experiences at university were related in one way or another to the union.”

As for Gupta, a lecturer in psychiatry at the University of Toronto and a research scientist at the Women’s College Hospital, she still values the people she met at the MDU. “One of the strengths of the union was that there was real validation of academic ambition. People cared about knowing things and doing well in their studies. They also cared about discussing things openly and freely. It turned out to be a very accepting group.”

Stefanik is intent on continuing this tradition. He wants new MDU members, in particular, to know they are going to have a good time. “A high priority is put on getting first-years to join. We realize we can’t be here forever,” he says.

For Sophie MacIntyre, BA&Sc’10, the MDU’s 2009-2010 president and part of the winning team at last year’s nationals, novice debaters were also a priority. “That’s the really nice thing about the MDU. A great deal of emphasis is put on training people as well as training people to do the training.”

Rosemond acknowledges that sessions like tonight’s, which are continued weekly, mostly as practice rounds, require a substantial investment of time and effort. “This is all institutional memory; no faculty or supervisors are involved. No one’s here to carry on the tradition. We have to do it ourselves and pass down our knowledge from one graduating class to the next. Like a kind of folklore.”

The first night of novice training ends, as promised or perhaps threatened, with an actual debate. By the time Rosemond and Gileadi have divided the class of 16 into two groups—according to British parliamentary style, there are four teams of two per debate—everyone is entering into the spirit of the competition. Rosemond’s group, for instance, is surprisingly passionate about an issue—abolishing CBC TV—they’ve likely never considered before. In fact, it’s one they just learned they’d be debating 15 minutes earlier. Despite that, a kind of transformation is taking place. Suddenly, everyone is part orator, part improv artist. With nothing more than a few scribbled notes to refer to, they’re making rousing five-minute speeches, addressing each other with a mix of formality and scorn: “Mr. Speaker, how can you deny that Peter Mansbridge is awesome! I repeat: awesome!”

They’re also rising from their seats for a POI, remembering to hold down their imaginary wigs, giggling a bit, but, mostly, taking this clearly anachronistic but undeniably challenging pursuit seriously. After the debate, Rosemond’s feedback is detailed. He suggests more teamwork, more focus, fewer arguments. Mostly, though, he’s impressed. “You guys are the best ever,” he says. “We’re going to dominate in novice tournaments.”

Mary-Louise Chabot, a first-year student in international development and a novice debater, seems justifiably impressed with herself, too. The last speaker in the round tonight, she found the experience stressful, but she’s glad she showed up. In fact, she dared herself to.

“I really want to go into international law or diplomacy and I know this will help me in those fields,” Chabot says. “Also, last year, I went to Pearson College in B.C. and everyone there debates. I always wanted to do it. But I didn’t have the nerve, not till tonight.”

Joel Yanofsky is a Montreal-based writer whose work has appeared in several publications, including the Village Voice, Canadian Geographic, the Globe and Mail and Reader’s Digest.

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