The North American Debating Championship is one of the two official university debate championships of North America. It is sanctioned by the national university debating associations in the United States and Canada, the American Parliamentary Debate Association and the Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate. It has been held each winter on an alternating basis between the United States and Canada since 1992. The host university arranges all judging and is not allowed in the competition. The most frequent hosts have been the University of Toronto and McGill University, which have each hosted the championship three times. Bates College, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University, and Queen's University have each hosted twice. This tournament, often abbreviated as NorthAms, is not to be confused with the North American Universities Debating Championship, abbreviated as NAUDC, which is hosted separately in the fall of each year as a British Parliamentary Style tournament. The two events are coordinated such that each is hosted by a different country, the United States or Canada, in a given year.
The most recent iteration was held by UChicago in January 2024. The current North American champions are from Yale University.
Since 1992, the most successful university overall has been Yale University with nine championship victories, including three of the last four. Following it is the University of Toronto with seven wins. After that, Princeton University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and McGill University have two championships each, and no other university has won more than once.
No team has ever repeated as the top team at the championship. Five individuals have won the top team award twice. Most recently, Matthew Song won in 2022 and 2024, representing Yale University. Matthew Wansley of Yale University won back-to-back championships from 2005 to 2007. Prior to that, Nathan MacDonald and Robert Silver won first together for the University of Western Ontario in 1997–1998, then MacDonald for the University of Guelph in 1998–1999, and Silver for the University of Ottawa in 1999–2000. Three people have won the top individual debater award twice: Casey Halladay of the University of Ottawa in 1997–1998 and 1999–2000, Rory Gillis of Yale University in two consecutive years from 2004 to 2006, and Kate Falkenstien of Yale in two consecutive years from 2010 to 2012.
| Year | Host | Champion Team | College | Top Debater | College |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Justin Kim & Matthew Song |  Yale | Ryan Lafferty | Dartmouth College | |
| 2023 | Ye Joo Han & Matt Mauriello | Harvard | Matt Mauriello | Harvard University | |
| 2022 | Cameron Chacon & Matthew Song | Yale | Devesh Kodnani | University of Chicago | |
| 2021 | Penn | David Edimo & Eva Quinones | Yale | Eva Quinones | Yale |
| 2020 |  Waterloo | Gautier Boyrie & Chris Pang | Toronto | Samuel Arnesen and Shreyas Kumar | Princeton |
| 2019 | Rutgers | William Arnesen & Xavier Sottile | Yale | Sophia Caldera | Harvard |
| 2018 | Toronto | Harry Elliott & David Slater | Stanford | Christopher Taylor | Yale |
| 2017 | Megan Wilson & Kyle Hietala | Nathan Raab | Princeton | ||
| 2016 | Anirudh Dasarathy & Brian Litchfield | Denizhan Uykur | McGill | ||
| 2015 | Juliana Vigorito & David Israel | Shomik Ghosh | Michigan | ||
| 2014 | Kaya Ellis & Louis Tsilivis | Michael Barton and Veenu Goswami | Yale and Toronto | ||
| 2013 | Coulter King & Josh Zoffer | Coulter King | Harvard | ||
| 2012 | Simon Cameron & Romeo Maione | Kate Falkenstien | Yale | ||
| 2011 | Nate Blevins & Pam Brown | Yale[1] | Kate Falkenstien | Yale | |
| 2010 | Adam Goldstein & Bill Magnuson | MIT[2] [3] | Richard Lizius | Toronto | |
| 2009 | Grant May & Andrew Rohrbach | Mark Samburg | Harvard | ||
| 2008 | Jon Laxer & Jason Rogers | Josh Bone | Yale | ||
| 2007 | Dylan Gadek & Matthew Wansley | Ian Freeman | Carleton | ||
| 2006 | Ben Eidelson & Matthew Wansley | Rory Gillis | Yale | ||
| 2005 | Joanna Nairn & Melanie Tharamangalam | Toronto[4] | Rory Gillis | Yale | |
| 2004 | James Renihan & Gordon Shotwell | Greg Allen | UBC | ||
| 2003 | Phil Larochelle & Patrick Nichols | MIT[5] | Emily Schleicher | NYU | |
| 2002 | Rory McKeown & Aaron Rousseau | Toronto[6] | Ranjan Agarwal[7] [8] | Ottawa | |
| 2001 | Storey Clayton & Adam Zirkin | David Silverman | Princeton | ||
| 2000 | Casey Halladay & Robert Silver | Casey Halladay | Ottawa | ||
| 1999 | Nathan MacDonald & Averill Pessin | Jason Goldman | Princeton | ||
| 1998 | Nathan MacDonald & Robert Silver | Casey Halladay | Ottawa | ||
| 1997 | John Oleske & Niall O'Murchada | John Oleske | Princeton | ||
| 1996 | Matt Cohen & Jamie Springer | Ron Guirguis | Guelph | ||
| 1995 | Jeremy Mallory & Neal Potishman | Michael D'Abramo | Toronto | ||
| 1994 | Randy Cass & Avery Plaw | Avery Plaw | Toronto | ||
| 1993 | Jason Brent & Thomas Meehan | Marc Givens | Queen's | ||
| 1992 | Marc Givens & Elicia Maine | Ted Cruz | Princeton | ||
Every year from 1992 to 2001, and biannually from 2003 to 2007, individual public speaking was also an event at the championship. It was run as a parallel tournament, with a grand public speaking final before the final round of debate. After 2007, it was discontinued as APDA had shortened debating tournaments and discontinued public speaking as a regular event at US tournaments. No individual ever repeated as North American Public Speaking Champion. McGill University and the University of Ottawa each had three public speaking champions, the most of any university.
| Year | Winner | College |
|---|---|---|
| 2007 | Vinay Kumar Mysore | McGill University |
| 2005 | Jason Rogers | McGill University |
| 2004 | Stuart Savelkoul[9] [10] | Dickinson State University |
| 2001 | Aidan Johnson | University of Toronto |
| 2000 | Jeremy Holiday | Middlebury College |
| 1999 | Mark Bigney | McGill University |
| 1998 | Michael Podgorski | Queen's University |
| 1997 | Jordan Mills | University of New Mexico |
| 1996 | Shuman Ghosemajumder | University of Western Ontario |
| 1995 | Marika Giles | Concordia University |
| 1994 | Jake Irving | University of Ottawa |
| 1993 | Michael McKneely | Colgate University |
| 1992 | Awanish Sinha | University of Ottawa |