Pledge to make a difference, together.
In 1967 Tom Lawson, a teacher in Port Hope, Ontario brought together high school students from around the province to participate in an invitational debating tournament. Over the next few years, more and more students from all over the country were drawn to the event and in 1972 the invitational enjoyed its first year of national participation. This marked the beginning of the Canadian Student Debating Federation, an organization which has evolved in the decades since to become an overarching organization responsible for the promotion and support of high school debating in Canada.
The crowning event of the CSDF is the annual National Student Debating Seminar which evolved from that first invitational tournament into a week-long tool for introducing students to the art of debating. Held in a different province each year and incorporating both official languages and various styles of debate, the National Seminar is both a debating event and a chance for cultural exchange.