Queen's Debating Union

The Queen's Debating Union is the debating society of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. It was founded as Canada's first debating society in 1843 and became one of the four founding organisations of Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate. It continues to be an active club on campus and has a strong presence both domestically and internationally as a competitive parliamentary debating club.

Founded in 1843, the Queen's Debating Union (or QDU) is the oldest student organization at Queen's University and the oldest varsity debating organization in Canada. The Dialectic Society, the original form of the QDU, was responsible for founding in 1858 and initially administering the Alma Mater Society, the student government organization for the University. Later, the formerly all-male Dialectic Society joined with the Levana Debating Society, the club's all-female equivalent, to become the modern incarnation of the Queen's Debating Union.

Queen's debaters were highly involved in constructing and maintaining the first manifestations of inter-collegiate debate among Canadian institutions, in particular organizing a longstanding set of competitions with the University of Ottawa beginning at the turn of the twentieth century. The club was also responsible for establishing initial links with debating societies in the United States. A 1908 debate between teams from Queen's University and Bates College is believed to have been the first international collegiate debate to have taken place in North America.

The Queen's Debating Union is a member of the Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate (CUSID), a national organization which governs and represents university debating across the country. Members of the QDU travel both nationally and globally to participate in competitive varsity tournaments where a broad set of intellectual issues, from bioethics to international political economy, are discussed and debated. Canadian debate tournaments occur in two primary styles of debate. British Parliamentary and Canadian Parliamentary, which involve four and two pairs of debaters respectively, both emphasize a style of debate using a combination of facts and rhetoric to achieve persuasive argumentation.

These tournaments and opportunities give Queen's students the opportunity to increase their knowledge of current issues, foster their public speaking skills and enhance the ability to think on their feet. Members of the Queen's Debate Union have achieved notoriety at public speaking events across Canada. The club is also highly active on campus, organizing show debates, inviting guest speakers, and running a high school outreach program to teach local students about debating and public speaking.

The Queen's Debating Union routinely hosts national and regional title tournaments as a member of CUSID, including the 2013 Women's National Championships, 2012 Leger Central Canadian Championships, the 2008 British Parliamentary Championship, 2017 Canadian Parliamentary National Championship, the 2020 Central Canadian Novice Debating Championship, the 2000, 2004 and 2016 North American Debating Championships as well as the 2018 North American University Debating Championship. The QDU also hosts two popular inter-varsity debate tournaments, the Queen's Chancellors Cup in British Parliamentary style and the Sutherland IV in Canadian Parliamentary style. The later is named for Robert Sutherland, an esteemed alumni of the Union.

In the spring, the QDU hosts the annual Queen's University High School Debating Championship, a well-known tournament that attracts hundreds of high school students from across Canada. In 2020, after many years as the most prominent high school Canadian Parliamentary tournament, the Union transitioned to hosting the tournament in British Parliamentary.

The QDU is a highly active club on the Queen's University campus and the wider Kingston community, participating in monthly show debates and providing two weekly meetings that are open to all interested students on campus.