Over the weekend the Swift Current Comprehensive High School debate team was in North Battleford where they competed in the 2019 debate provincials.

A total of two grade nine teams of two students competed against seven other teams from Saskatoon, Regina, and North Battleford in the novice category.

Cindy Lowe, the business education, skills and apprenticeship teacher at the Swift Current Comprehensive High School said that they did excellent at this year's provincials.

"We came home with a silver medal in the team, a bronze medal in the team, and a first, second, and third place in the individual speaker awards so we did really well."

Kai Popp and Emma Carlson took home the silver, while Ellie Lowe and Rachel Argue took home the bronze. In the individual awards, the gold went to Rachel Argue, silver to Emma Carlson, and Kai Popp took home the bronze.

This success continues a trend with the debate team as the previous three years they have placed in the top one, two, or three in the novice level something that Lowe said is just do to having really engaged kids participating.

"We had a really strong team of kids this year that have been debating quite a bit," she said. "They attended practices; we debated in class in our business club meeting. We did some practice presentations to Kiwanis and to our kids, and the kids were really strong coming in. Some of the kids also started a debate team at All Saints."

The debate competition saw the students debate on topics on the Law and the Charter Rights and Freedoms over four different rounds. In rounds one and two, they argued both for and against the notwithstanding clause. In rounds three and four the students were given 30 minutes to prepare on debates about how to hold parents responsible for gender or race-based violence and speech of their children and how to prioritize free speech over safe spaces in universities.

Lowe said that the students were able to do well because they were able to be prepped due to the likes of parents and Cypress-Grasslands MP David Anderson helping out the students.

"With the notwithstanding clause has been used provincially and not yet been used federally, but to have the advantage of having David come in and talk with us about the reason the cause is there, the reason it was put into the charter, the history of it, we had to argue in favor and against the clause, so the kids need to know why it's there and the good and bad parts of it," she said. "It was pretty lofty topics, but David brought the charter with him and outlined the reasons for the charter. We did some prep beforehand looking at what the charter covered and what the rights were, but then again it shows a love of learning and research and learning about these topics over and above what we teach in here in school."

For the debate team this is the end of there season, and now the business club is going to focus on preparing for there business case competitions and then get ready for the theie big provincial event for the business club in early May.