Debate and Speech Season Wrap-up

By Ms. Tracey Lee, Debate and Model UN Coach 

In the past four weeks, our debaters have achieved a number of significant wins. Pierre Collet ‘22 and Eric Li ‘23 competed at the BC French Provincial Debates, winning the tournament and topping the speaker tabs (Pierre was provincial champion). This led to them advancing to the French Nationals Debating Championship, hosted by Lower Canada College (QC), where they again topped the tabs in preliminary rounds of debate. Eric Li was named French National Debating Champion, with his partner Pierre close on his heels, finishing 2nd overall.

On the heels of French Nationals, public speakers Edward Gao ‘24 and Mia Torres ‘24 competed at the Canadian Junior High Speech Nationals, hosted by Country Day School (ON). The top 50 public speakers from across the country competed in this tournament. Mia Torres ended up winning 3rd place overall in solo acting and Edward Gao won 3rd place overall in persuasive speech. Edward ranked 6th overall (across all four categories of speech and debate) at the end of the tournament.

Each year, Canada is invited to send teams to compete at the International Competition for Young Debaters (ICYD) held annually at Cambridge University. The top three Canadian junior teams had qualified for this event from Canadian BP Nationals. This year, Chelsea Hu ’23 and Arman Kassam ‘23 impressed the UK judges in the preliminary rounds. Although they were unable to advance to the semifinals, their performance at this event, the UK’s premier championship for junior debaters from all over the commonwealth, was a satisfying achievement.

What a season! What a team! Kudos to all of our debaters and public speakers who represented WPGA so well in all areas of competition. They were fantastic ambassadors for our school and our programs.