Sarah Levy

In Doha, Qatar, a team of Canadian high school students won the gold medal at the World Schools Debating Championship. This was Canada’s first gold since a Canadian team won the inaugural competition in 1988.

One of the members of the winning team is the Winnipeg Jewish community’s Sarah Levy.

The daughter of Moe Levy, the executive director of the Asper Foundation, was the only Winnipegger to make the team as well as the only Jewish member of the team. The other eight team members, she notes, included three students each from Halifax and Vancouver and two from Calgary.

Team Canada's debating team

Levy is a Grade 11 student at St. John’s-Ravenscourt School, a prestigious private school. She enrolled in Ravenscourt last September after attending the Winnipeg Board of Jewish Education’s Gray Academy to the end of Grade 10.

The star debater began to debate through the Gray Academy’s debating program when she was in Grade 7. Last December, she finished in the top 10 in individual debating in the annual Asper Cup International High School Debates in Winnipeg. She and her partner were also finalists in the pairs competition.

She has previously debated internationally in England and Scotland.

Levy notes that the selection process for the all-Canada debating team begins at the provincial level. The top three debaters from each province compete for the nine spots on the team. The decision is made based on participation in debate tournaments as well as through an interview process and debate resumes. The team members are chosen 14 months ahead of the world championships.

“There was a lot of training and studying involved, Levy notes. “We had online assignments. We had papers to prepare. We had to read a lot of books and follow the news. And we did tune-up debates and practice rounds every so often in different cities.”

The world tournament took place in Doha from Feb. 8 to 18.

“It was amazing to see so many debaters from so many countries,” Levy says. “There were almost 60 countries represented, 10 times as many as in 1988 when the first world tournament was held.”

Among the toughest competitors, Levy says, were teams from England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore and Pakistan. The Israeli team finished in 15th place.

In the finals, Levy’s team was up against the team from England. In that debate, the Canadian team had to defend a resolution that big companies should never receive government bailouts. The Canadian debaters won by an 8-3 score.

Levy has nothing but praise for the tournament’s Qatari hosts. “The royal family funded the tournament,” she says. “I had a very positive impression of the Qatari people. Everyone treated us very well. They seemed grateful that we were there.”

Since her return from Qatar, Levy has participated in a debate in Winnipeg and is looking forward to the national tournament in Victoria in April.  She already knows that she will be representing Canada again at the next world championship, which is scheduled for August 2011 in Dundee, Scotland. After finishing high school, she is planning to enrol  in arts at McGill University, with the ultimate goal of earning a law degree.