University of Toronto Hart House WUDC 1991

Toronto's second championships were held under the North American style of debating, which involved just 2 teams in each debate and Double Octo-finals. The eventual winners were McGill University (Chris Wayland and Mona Gupta), defeating Dalhousie University (Stephen Pitel and John Haffner) in the final. Stephen Pitel would go on to debate for and coach Cambridge and pioneer the case book approach which would come to dominate teams tactics at Worlds. James Rocchi, from the University of Western Ontario Debating Society, was named World Public Speaking Champion.

Champions:

McGill A (8)

Finalists:
Dalhousie B (10)

Semi-Finalists:
Ryerson (13)
Macquarie B (27)

Quarter-Finalists:
UNSW A (1)
Yale B (2)
Sydney A (3)
Oxford A (12)

Octo-Finalists:
Middle Temple (5)
Cambridge A (15)
Glasgow A (17)
Yale A (19)
Edinburgh A (24)
UC Dublin B (26)
Smith A (27)
Glasgow B (29)

Double Octo-Finalists:
Oxford B (4)
Waterloo A (6)
Dalhousie A (7)
McGill B (8)
Johns Hopkins A (11)
Melbourne A (14)
King's Inn A (16)
Swarthmore A (18)
Western Ontario A (20)
Monash A (21)
Concordia A (23)
UC Dublin A (25)
Queensland A (28)
Macquarie A (30)
Monash B (31)
Wilfrid Laurier A (32)


This History of the World Debating Championships comes in 3 parts. From 1976 to 1990 it is taken almost word for word from the 1991 Toronto WUDC Tournament booklet. Who wrote it isn't known but it was provided by Randal Horobik. At the start of the section on Worlds in 1981 is an extract from an e-mail by Clark McGinn, Convenor of Debates, GU Union 1980 -81 and 1981 and Convenor of the First World Debating Competition, 1981. The history since 1991 has been compiled initially by Colm Flynn and edited by many contributors to Wikipedia. Unfortunately Wikipedia deleted the history due to copyright concerns so we are back here. Hopefully anyone who contributed to the Wiki article before it was deleted will be happy to see their work preserved here.