Start by reaching out to your Provincial debate organisation. While the Team Canada Committee does accept applications through the alternates process, your first point of contact should be gaining more information about how your province selects candidates.

Details about initial provincial selection are sent to all provincial organisations who are responsible for communicating to their members. Updates are also posted in our Newsletter.

Because we select students more than a full calendar year before WSDC, students cannot apply if they are in their final year of high school.

The number of alternates we are able to send is based on how many provincial delegates attend. Alternates are used to help round the number of candidates to roughly 30 students overall.

Due to the existence of regional circuits and a massive number of online tournaments available for students, it can become difficult for the committee to accurately assess what the results from a particular tournament mean. How competitive was that tournament? How many people attended? What was the quality of judging and motions? – these questions are much more difficult to answer when the tournament is not well known.

In order to make selections for the very small number of Alternate spots as fair as possible, having a strict and clear standard for what tournament results we are interested in helps to make the process as consistent as possible.

The tryout tournament is typically composed of 6 rounds, WSDC style, all impromptu.

Committee members look at your ranking/scores in each round, your prep process, ability to grow from feedback, and your interview.

Debaters are assessed on their debating skills, their ability to improve, their ability to work as a team member, and their commitment to the team. While many students often have substantial experience in WSDC style, it is by no means a requirement. Students with very little coaching or experience in WSDC style have gone on to become members of the five because of their work ethic and ability to implement feedback.

The Committee selects up to 12 students to join the development team. This is typically dependent on the number of members returning to the team.

The Five refers to the 5 students selected to attend WSDC itself.

Because Canada has the benefit of a long training season before Worlds, we are able to select a larger number of students to compete and train throughout the year, typically 12 students.

The tryouts process is for selecting those 12 students who train and compete during the school year. From there, 5 students (plus a number of alternate debaters determined by the host of worlds that year) are selected to attend WSDC.

Being on the National debate team is a serious time, money, and effort commitment, but a very rewarding one.

Expectations for the development team include:

• Attending a week long in-person training camp the summer they’re selected
• Completing assignments and readings along with weekly debate practices
• Attending several in-person and online tournaments throughout the year
• Assisting in hosting and judging Team Canada fundraising tournaments to help offset the cost of Worlds

The first mandate of the committee is to win a World Championship. Most of our time and resources are dedicated to organising and planning for the current team’s trips, fundraising so students can attend Worlds, and selecting the next year’s team.

That being said, the committee understands that this goal will be more achievable if the provincial members hold more trainings and tournaments in World Style. The committee supports provincial member initiatives in that direction. The committee keeps contact with a great number of Alumni for developing regional skills in WSDC style, and seeks avenues to help coaches that would like to become a judge at Worlds.

In addition, members of the committee will try to organize a World Style Tournament in their own region in order to increase the debaters and judges experience.

Committee members and coaches implement a variety of strategies to reduce conflicts of interest as much as possible:

• Committee and coaches disclose which students attending have been coached by them.
• While they do watch rounds with those students in them, their scores are not counted.
• Committee members do not interview students they have conflicts with.