Results from the February 22nd, 2025 Event

On behalf of the Speech and Debate Canada Foundation Board of Directors I would like to offer a sincere congratulations to the Winners of the 2025 - 4th  Annual Persuasive Speech Competition for their hard work on their speech submissions on “Making Canada Stronger”.  Once again participants created a 5-7 minute speech that identified a problem they believed Canada is facing. Each speech needed to explain the nature and consequences of the selected issue and suggest strategies for overcoming this problem. All speeches performed were  written by the presenting student; students were not permitted to reuse speeches from earlier tournaments.  Students were expected to select an issue about which they are passionate. The selected problem was one that impacts specific regions or communities or the country as a whole.  Traditionally, this competition only accepted entries in English, however, for 2025, we opened up our competition to both official languages with categories in English and French.  This year we were happy to receive our first and only French entry in the Junior category.

Canada is in good hands given the speeches we heard and they should all be very proud of their hard work. We received 78 submissions, all were viewed and scored by our preliminary judges of:

• Richard Picotin (QC) - French Judge
• Jordan Burg (MB)
• Marilyn Lunde (BC)
• Efrain Vasquez (AB)
• Arghya Dev Biswas Aryan (BC)
• Arka Dev Biswas Deepra (ON)
• Alaa Ibrahim - (BC)
• Ethan Curry - (ON)
• Massoma Kisob - (ON)

Our finalists delivered their speeches live on Sunday, February 22nd, 2025 on zoom to a panel of six distinguished judges. Our finalist panel of judges were:

• Tracey Lee (BC)
• John Carmichael (ON)
• Nikki Cupit (ON)
• Massoma Kisob (ON)
• Vinayak Mishra (ON)
• Robert McLeese (ON)

The top winner in each of the two categories will share their prize with their charity of choice. Please do join me in congratulating our winners for 2024!

English Junior Category:
Winner: Olivia Liu (BC) - Supported Charity: Community Foods Centre Canada
Finalists: Durga Anand (SK) & Logan Gordon (AB)

English Senior Category:
Winner: Nicole Liu (BC)  - Supported Charity: Canadian Women's Foundation
Finalists: Muskaan Jaiswal (BC) & Carol Qin (BC)

French Junior Category:

Winner: Erin Sweeney (BC) - Supported Charity: PHS Community Services Society

Well done delegates. On behalf of the Speech & Debate Canada Foundation we wish you all every success in the future!

Notes:

     The Categories:

Junior Category: Students in middle school (defined here as Grades 6, 7, 8, or 9) were placed here.

Senior Category: Students in high school (defined here as Grades 10, 11 or 12) were placed here.

     The Prize:

The winner in each category received a prize of $500. The Speech and Debate Canada Foundation gave $250 of this sum to each winning student in each category, while donating the other half of the award money to a non-profit of the student’s choosing.  The selected non-profit was working to alleviate the problem identified in the student’s speech.

     Evaluation:

Speeches were evaluated on four criteria: research, persuasiveness, speaking style, as well as the clarity of the problem and solution(s) identified in the speech. Each category will be worth 25% of the student’s final score. Comments were provided to all participants, however no scores were released. Our focus is on growing the love of this activity, rather than getting caught up in numbers.

     Speech Structure:

Students were free to experiment with their speech structure, but the speech must, at the very least, identify and explain a problem facing Canada.

     Time Limits:

Speeches were 5-7 minutes in length in both the senior and junior categories, with a grace time of 15 seconds for speeches under 5 minutes or over 7 minutes. Speeches that fall more than fifteen seconds short or exceed the time limit by more than fifteen seconds will be penalized. 

Inquires please contact our Executive Director, Debra Miko at ED@speechanddebatecanada.com