You might have spent your weekend either frantically studying for that ever-elusive last midterm, or trying to get an ephemeral reminder of what it is to have fun before finals come down full force. But for UBC debaters, this weekend meant the opportunity to take a shiny trophy home, courtesy of the McGoun Western Canadian Debate Championship.
For this weekend’s debate, the Canadian Parliamentary style was the debate method of preference. In this debate structure there’s no flying solo, given that participants pair up to compete and victory is only secured if partners work in tandem.
“A lot of it comes down to the relationship between you and your partner. Between my partner and me we had a very supportive relationship, like, it doesn’t matter if we win or loose, we’re still good people and we’ll still have fun,” said Allison Morell.
This weekend, 14 teams representing four of the largest West Coast Universities, including the University of Victoria and UBC, went through six debating rounds, arguing for or against topics ranging from whether we should eliminate the Hogwarts house system to more contentious issues such as whether internet anonymity has done more harm than good. Although the seriousness of topics varied, the selection for this year’s final was an irreverent exercise in the highly hypothetical: should MGM studios make the next James Bond a woman?
As University of Victoria debater and finalist Nicolas Méthot gleefully announced the final debate topic, gasps and laughs were heard across the room.
“This house as MGM studios will make the next James Bond a woman. We changed, however, only the biological sex and the fact that she identifies bodily as a woman, every other facet of James Bond’s character remains the same insofar as being an alcoholic, womanizing mysoginist … who is a super badass spy. The story line remains the same,” he said, opening the debate.
After the announcement, the opposition team had less than 10 minutes to prepare before one of the partners got on-stage to argue against MGM’s head-turning decision. The first opposition debater was Connor Hunter, third-year Arts student, Model U.N and UBC Debate aficionado. Hunter has also won three debate tournaments this past year. After that, Méthot’s debate partner, second-year Emma Kinakin passionately argued for a new era in female leads. Grant Bradshaw closed with the argument that women deserve to craft their own role models, rather than borrowing from a figure that has so much historical baggage already.
The winners for this year were Hunter and Bradshaw, allowing UBC to keep its title from last year’s victory. Although this was announced at the end of the night, when interviewed after the end of the closing arguments, they both said debate -- although competitive by nature -- was most attractive to them because of the people they’ve met and befriended.
“Debate allows you to challenge your views and gives you the confidence and purpose to achieve real progress. For me, it’s where I have made some of my best friends,” said Shannon Hogan, previous Western Canadian Debate Champion and current French Director of UBC Debate.
For UBC Debate, the people are the heart and bedrock of the club. That’s why so many are drawn to it.
Correction: A previous version of this article said Grant Bradshaw had won three debate victories this year, in fact it was Connor Hunter who won three debate tournaments. It also mentioned that Nicolas Méthot was a UBC student when in fact Nicolas is a student from the University of Victoria. The Ubyssey regrets this error.