Lisgar debate team debuts at Oxford Cup

Already one of the province’s leading academic public schools, Lisgar Collegiate Institute is now striving for recognition in the world of debate.

The high school’s debating team put in a strong performance in its recent debut at the Oxford Cup national tournament in Winnipeg, and will host Ontario’s provincial championship early in the new year.

Lisgar’s team was on track for a quarter-final appearance in Winnipeg until a penalty in its final preliminary round match sent it spiraling out of the tournament. 

Nonetheless, team members were satisfied with their performance at the event, during which students wrestled with political, environmental and scientific issues.

“It was my first time at a fully national tournament,” said Lisgar co-captain and Grade 12 student Gabriel Sher. “We were doing quite well, but slipped up in the last round.” The infraction involved a debating tactic that “would’ve been correct in Ontario, but it wasn’t with Manitoba judges.”

The tournament was hosted by a pair of Winnipeg-area private schools, Gray Academy and St. John’s-Ravenscourt, and won by a team representing the University of Toronto Schools.

“It was interesting to be with students across the country,” said Sher, who plans to major in engineering — an atypical career choice for debate competitors, who typically favour degrees in political fields. 

“Debate is something that has transformed the way I see things in the real world, making me a much more analytical person, and more confident as a thinker and speaker.”

The team’s respectable showing in Winnipeg bodes well for February’s provincial tournament, hosted at Lisgar itself, and which will feature 40 of Ontario’s top debate teams in a single-elimination tournament that promises high drama and the rekindling of old rivalries on the debate circuit.

“It’s going to be weird to be on home territory for a tournament,” admitted Sher, whose team typically visits universities and high-end private schools to compete. “People from Halton, Kingston, Thunder Bay, and of course, Toronto, will all be here.”