Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The 2011 National Student Debating Seminar of the Canadian Student Debating Federation is taking place in Hay River from March 9th to 13th. There are 78 delegates participating in formal debates representing 10 provinces, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. This is considered to be one of their largest debates and it is the first of its kind to take place in the North since 1975.
The participating delegates are accomplished students chosen by provincial and territorial debating organizations through a competitive process. The seminar theme has been appropriately chosen to be northern issues and the debates will be parliamentary, cross-examination and consensus styles. The resolutions for debate are: should cultural preservation be a top government priority; resource development is more important than environmental protection; and Canada should take more active measures to assert sovereignty over the Arctic. Those are their topics.
The seminar will be a unique northern experience for these competitors. On the debating side, the seminar will feature two rounds of debate modelled on the NWT’s consensus style of government. Each delegate will debate a topic twice; once for, once against the issue being debated.
The group of delegates will be kept very busy during their stay in Hay River. Some of the planned activities for each day are pond hockey, curling, dog mushing, ice fishing, a tour of Buffalo Airways, a variety of arts and cultural activities including beading, fiddling, drumming, storytelling and more.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome our visiting delegates to the Northwest Territories and to wish all of them luck in their debating challenges. I would also like to congratulate and thank the people of Hay River who were involved in organizing this event. Gatherings like this don’t just happen. It takes extraordinary volunteers. People who commit to working long hours, making arrangements for travel and accommodations, selecting venues, recruiting judges, programming entertainment and various other details and then pulling it all together. Many thanks to Geoff Buerger, the principal at the Princess Alexandra School in Hay River who accepted the challenge of organizing this major event. Thanks to his volunteer committee, all the volunteer judges and, of course, all the folks at the Princess Alexandra School who I’m sure will all be recruited to help out. I thank them all for their effort, commitment and hard work to have contributed to make such an exciting event possible. Best wishes to everyone involved for a successful weekend and we will see you down there at the debate.
I want to say that I think things like debating organizations are extremely important. In surveys it has been determined that fear of public speaking is right up there with the fear of death. These are the kind of things that give people confidence to speak in public and I challenge our colleagues today with this crowd here to do us proud and answer our questions today.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
