This Case Document is meant to be an example of cases which teams could have run at CNDF Nationals 2024. This document is not intended to be considered the “right” case for any of these motions, many other arguments may exist. The purpose of this document is to help teams who debated at CNDF Nationals 2024 reflect on their performance in the rounds, and use these cases to learn so that they can debate even better in the future. These cases are simply a skeleton for you to build off of, as all the contentions contained within should be run with many additional lines of analysis. This document is intended to be completely free, so you should not have paid for it in any capacity. If you have any thoughts about this resource or would like to reach out with any questions, please feel free to do so at: seedtournaments@gmail.com
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Proposition
Framing:
1: This leads to an influx of capital to the healthcare system, particularly in specialist procedures and testing, which are often particular points of blockage in the health care network. Because people can now pay for access to more treatments, new supplies of those treatments will be created to meet this new demand. Rich people will pay for private services, additionally taking the burden off the public system and letting it better serve the needs of people who will remain in the public system.
2: Breaking up the government monopoly on healthcare generates competition within the system. Prices will be kept low, because insurance providers still have to compete against the public option. This competition also reduces inefficiencies, as currently common issues like overly bureaucratic systems and underdiagnosis are heavily disincentivized. Health service providers often work slowly in some sectors, bogging down the system as a whole.
3: Canada can now retain the healthcare workers who we pay to train with public money in medical schools. Private options allow many healthcare workers to earn much more money from more expensive private insurance, which would incentivize Canadian healthcare workers to remain in Canada to work. This would also prevent Canada from taking advantage of the developing world causing brain drain from medical systems in countries like Nigeria, and The Philippines.
Opposition
1: Competition for services and products raises the price of a limited supply across the board. This competition occurs due to overlap and redundancies between competing firms. Private providers have to do many administrative capacities which are otherwise streamlined in a single public provider, creating increased costs at scale.
2: Private healthcare is inaccessible to the poor, and further lowers the quality of public systems. Public systems will be outcompeted for the best healthcare professionals, lose funding due to reduced demand, and lose capacity due to upward pressure on equipment prices. Private providers have incentives to leverage their money to get priority access to many treatments, which leads to
3: Overdiagnosis can result from the private sector, because businesses want to profit as much as possible. Many bad actors can be tempted to over diagnose and over prescribe services and medication so that they can extract as much money as possible from the system as a whole. Overdiagnosis is not only costly to the system, but can have significant external harms to individuals just trying to get adequate treatment and care.
Proposition
Framing:
1: Indigenous communities get an influx of cash they desperately need. Tourism money is significant, and would lead to work for indigenous people who often live in economically remote areas of the country where there are few options for regular work. This would also encourage a great deal of infrastructure to be developed within Indigenous communities, which would have spill over economic benefits to the people living there.
2: This creates a financial influx for the upkeep of many Indigenous practices. A significant number of artisans have no viable way to profit off of their work, furthermore many people produce fake Indigenous products despite having no background within the culture which crowd out their goods. An influx of tourists allows for many of these artisans to have direct access to people who would be interested in buying the things they make. This allows for the historic practices of things like indigenous woodworking to survive in a modern economy.
3:This increases the political leverage of indigenous communities. Now that they are more profitable they can lobby governments. This would allow them to get solutions to many things that cause them problems, like clear cutting of forests in Brazil or lack of clean drinking water in Canada.
Opposition
Framing:
-Though many reservations lack significant development, this is the wrong sort of development for these communities.
1: This will gentrify reservations. As this tourism industry grows, more and more people get driven onto indigenous land in order to meet the growing demand. There are not enough indigenous people, or enough highly educated indigenous people to work all of the necessary jobs in logistics, service, and other industries to power a large growing tourism industry. Therefore, a significant number of people are required to move into indigenous land in order to work the jobs serving the tourists. These people have more money, and compete for a scarce pool of resources and territory, driving up prices for Indigenous people. Over time, anyone who wishes to live on the land gets driven away due to the rising cost of living, similar to how many people are forced out of ethnic communities in cities like New York.
2: Though many practices may earn money, this is done by servicing an audience who have a very reductive view of what Indigenous people, art, and spirituality all look like. In order to serve this audience, the types of art and products which are made have to be reduced to the narrow perspective of the tourists. This has a trickle down effect of commodifying many spiritually and culturally meaningful practices in the long term, and artisans will begin to prioritize these types of works over more culturally authentic ones. This contributes to colonialism's harmful effects on indigenous culture.
3: A downstream effect of more industry on Indigenous land are the environmental costs. In order to build large hotels, airports, and roads one must cut down trees, dam rivers, and pollute the surrounding territory. Furthermore, tourists are unlikely to be particularly respectful of the land they are guests on, and could cause damage to the environment through careless behavior. This leads to much of the indigenous land being damaged, and changed from its natural state. For many indigenous communities, the specific character and context of the land they live on is important to them
Proposition
Framing: The likely counterfactual is that love can include sacrifice, but that it is not ever required. It is usually acceptable for people to put themselves above others, and prioritize their own needs and wants above the needs and wants of the people they love.
1: People are already sufficiently pushed to prioritize the people we love due to how love has a powerful effect on our short term decision making. This narrative takes things too far, as it says a requirement of love is the sacrifice – which is often not true and pushes people to make way more sacrifices than necessary. For many people who are particularly sensitive to obsessive attachment, this narrative can be a bad influence and get them to de-value their own needs in unproductive ways.
2: This narrative expands the exploitation present in some relationships. In abusive relationships, this narrative justifies the partner with more power to trivialize and expect the sacrifices of their less powerful partner. This narrative allows some people to use the requirement of sacrifice in order to extract more out of their partner than they should be expected to give.
3: This narrative reduces love into a mere transaction, as most people define sacrifice in material sorts of ways. They are taught to expect material things out of the people in their life
Opposition
1: People often need things during specific points in their life where loving them is not easy. Examples: pregnancy, child rearing, mental health or addiction crises. For these people, the people in their close life are the only people they can rely on. A narrative which encourages them to sacrifice other things in order to be there through these hard times is good.
2: This narrative makes people feel more comfortable with the choices they have made when society forces them to sacrifice things for the people they love. In many instances, people are put into situations where they have no choice but to sacrifice things for others. If family members get sick, or there are accidental pregnancies, then people can be put into positions where there are very large burdens upon them they did not choose. This narrative allows people to feel like that sacrifice is natural, and just a part of what it means to love another person allowing that sacrifice to feel more natural.
3: This narrative leads to more intense relationships that make people feel they are more loved than they otherwise would feel. The narrative tells people that being loved is something that causes people to give things up, so when people have a reciprocal platonic, familial, or romantic relationship these are more fulfilling and intense for the people within them. Both parties put in more work for their loving relationships, which benefits both parties more than prioritizing themselves would.
Proposition
1: Non-compete clauses slash innovation, as they hinder the spread of information and talent. This slows the growth of the industry, and allows hoarders of talent to monopolize in the long term, incurring all the common harms of monopolies. This also means that the full value of top talent doesn’t get realized, as they are not moving to the most profitable positions.
2: Non-compete clauses mean that employees cannot easily opt out of bad environments. This is especially bad in widespread non-compete environments, where workers have very few options for companies which don’t have non-compete clauses. It is principally valuable to workers to be able to make decisions about their employment.
3: Growth of job prospects (raises, promotions, bonuses etc.) are used to incentivize talent to stay at the corporation. Non-compete clauses create an environment where growth opportunities are unnecessary to provide. Employees deserve the right to advance in their position, and it is wrong to allow companies to rob them of this opportunity.
Opposition
Framing:
1: It is perfectly fair for a company to make a consensual agreement with their employees. People can and choose to consent to these clauses. The majority of employees who sign these sorts of clauses cost the non-compete consequences into their decision to accept an offer of employment.
2: Many companies invest a lot of time and money training their employees, it is unfair to ask them to risk that investment. If an employee makes discoveries and accomplishments using company resources, the company should be entitled to the fruits of their labor. Companies would be disincentivized to training many employees as much as they otherwise would if they were able to cost in a non compete guarantee that they would not train an employee just to better their direct competitors.
3: Small businesses struggle to survive without non-compete environments because talent is easily poached and intellectual property is difficult to retain. Small businesses cannot easily compete on wages with larger companies, and top talents are easy to poach. This is important because small businesses are conducive to things like innovation, competitive pricing, and good working conditions.
Proposition
Framing:
1: Most journalists fail at being objective, it is better for them to acknowledge their subjective biases and make that transparent to the audience. The failed appearance of objectivity does a great deal of harm, because people do not seek out alternative viewpoints. Additionally, many subjective accounts of things are worthwhile and valuable for people to hear.
2: Often, journalists have a deep personal connection to issues due to a shared identity or experience. This is not something a journalist can be reasonably expected to control. They will be unable to suspend their subjectivity and will be shamed by the audience and peers, silencing their voices. The perspective of these journalists is still worth hearing, so we should not discount their voice just because they cannot meet a unreasonable bar of objectivity.
3: Subjectivity in journalism is likely to be done well because backlash and boycotts hold profit-driven corporations accountable. As such, opinions in journalism are likely to be well substantiated, respond to common criticisms, and reasonably acceptable. Since people are already exposed to so many opinions elsewhere (tik tok, reddit), it is better to let journalists micro-dose them with this rational subjectivity rather than allow their imagination to run wild with neutral content.
Opposition
1: Journalists require some active intervention in order to not succumb to their implicit biases. This notion forces journalists to think about how they are framing an issue, and whether they are being fair and balanced in their coverage. Absent this notion, journalists will make damaging assumptions due to the way they are raised and the implicit biases that they are exposed to.
2: Journalists are forced to look for statements on both sides of a story/issue. Often, if this notion did not exist they would publish only one side of a story/issue. This trends coverage toward whatever the dominant opinion is, and means that minority viewpoints or identities will be locked out of sharing their experiences.
3: A notion of objectivity means journalists will be shamed for publishing their pieces or opinions that are overwhelmingly partisan and hateful. This reduces the amount of hateful content which is spread. Though there will still be some hateful content in our world, it will be somewhat less socially acceptable.
Proposition
Framing: Civil disobedience has higher stakes, so protestors are unlikely to waste limited social capital on ineffective protests. For example, protestors are far more likely to vandalize the institution which caused them harm rather than plaster their message onto a local public school given an equal likelihood of getting in trouble. Most of these protests are planned out in advance, similar to the famous example of Rosa Parks being arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus.
1: Civil disobedience is an effective form of protest. Imposing non violent but tangible economic and social hardships onto the country forces the government to take action through either violence or concessions. When the public sees that your cause is just, they will not accept violence as a solution which forces the government to concede to your demands.
2: Arrests create platforms for the message to get out about your cause, and generate public support. Publications will explain the reasons that a protestor chose to take the actions they took, exposing the message to many in the general public who might otherwise not see it. They may also see that someone believes in a cause so much that they choose to go to jail for it, and be personally swayed over as a result.
3: By making civil disobedience a dominant form of protest, you protect activists who perform actions which are illegal. Instead of small activists being singled out by police, it is large leaders who are arrested in planned demonstrations, and the police do not arrest smaller scale protestors.
Opposition
1: Civil Disobedience alienates moderate centrists. The news will frame the protest negatively, and many centrists will accept that as a fair representation of those protests. Centrists will perceive one side acting in a way that is against the values of their society as a reason to side against your cause. These are the most important communities for you to win over, since they are how you reach a threshold of public support that is sufficient for you to succeed.
2: Civil Disobedience will result in the incarceration of many activists, imposing on them police brutality and prison. This type of violence is very harmful, and they are people who should not be subject to it unnecessarily. This also limits their capacity to work for your movement while they are incarcerated, reducing the efficacy of the movement.
3: Civil Disobedience is hard to effectively moderate. Once some people begin to disobey, it can spiral into more extreme forms of public disobedience, which invariably gets conflated with your own forms of disobedience. These more extreme forms of public anger are objectionable in their own right, but also greatly reduce whatever public support your movement may have generated.
Proposition
Framing: At the highest level, rhythmic gymnastics and figure skating are more of a sport than an art form. This should be the primary scoring mechanism for performers.
There are ways that scoring can force the performers to maintain elements of artistic expression, like mandating the number of jumps that are allowed to be in a performance to stop bad incentives from taking over the sport.
1: Technical elements (ex: how many rotations a skater can perform during a jump) are the most fair way we can adjudicate a performance. Artistic performance is far more subjective than whether someone performed a jump successfully or not. Athletes deserve a chance to be judged fairly for their skills and talents.
2: Viewers of the sport greatly enjoy seeing the limits of human achievement pushed further and further. This incentivizes athletes to train as hard as possible to do more and more impressive feats of physicality.
3: Artistic scoring is more likely to be subject to implicit biases. The ways that judges expect emotion to be portrayed is informed by their own personal background and cultural heritage. Because this is not universal, there are a number of things that athletes may do which are deeply artistically meaningful, but judges cannot fairly assess. There are similar problems with what sorts of music performances might be set to. This means that any adjudication of the artistic merit of a performance will privilege people of some backgrounds over others.
Opposition
Framing: We are not disregarding technical achievements, they are just balanced among artistic performance.
1: There are many activities that are purely about technical accomplishments (olympic sprinting and skating, and many team & combat sports). What is unique about artistic sports is the element of performance, and this is something which should be emphasized. Fans and athletes can watch any other sport if they want to see technical mastery, we should not de-emphasize the things which make these sports special.
2: The technical adjudication is not even objective – because the perfect way of doing certain tricks is dependent on body proportions, and whether something gets easier/harder depends on the body of a particular athlete. This means that many people of different shapes/heights get unfairly penalized for having a body that moves in ways that is different from the ideal execution of a jump. Artistic scoring can better account for the totality of an athlete's skill.
3: This sport becomes much less exciting for fans. When artistry becomes disincentivized, athletes will spend less time trying to make performances that are synced well to the music, or express their emotions and experiences. An incentive is created for all performances to become roughly analogous to one another, as all athletes begin trying to accomplish the same couple physical feats. Much of what makes artistic sports engaging to watch as a spectator is lost, and this would mean much of the existing audience for this activity become upset, and stop engaging with the sport.
Proposition
Model: This is done with NATO, whose allies retain full free passage throughout the territory. NATO allies will help provide Canada with icebreakers, submarines, and outposts where we will prepare the Canadian Navy to work overseeing the passage. NATO members assist with financing and labor. We slowly build up capacity over time in order to have enough capacity to oversee the passage at the point at which it is navigable by commercial vessels.
Framing:
1: Canada can utilize control over this passage as a diplomatic tool to sanction countries whenever they desire. Allies will like this, since we will use it to support global western interests. If countries are engaging in bad human rights practices, or are doing things that are objectionable to the global international order then we have a piece of leverage. This additionally would make it much more challenging for states to engage in trade wars with Canada, since we have unilateral control over the Northwest Passage as a bargaining chip.
2:This would help jumpstart economic activity surrounding the northwest passage. A substantial amount of naval traffic through the passage would need to be serviced by repair docks, refueling stations, and other industry to support maritime shipping.
3: This takes part of the burden off of Canada’s allies to do national defense, particularly within the arctic. Canada has failed to meet NATO obligations, and the US cannot be expected to maintain its defense umbrella under a second Trump presidency. As a result, increased Canadian presence at the north of our border, including missile defenses, radar, and other services help improve Canadian security.
Opposition
Framing:
This is unnecessary for Canada to do. America already protects international shipping routes, as they have in the Red sea against Houthi attacks. Canada would passively benefit from having shipping routes moving through our territory anyways, there is no need for them to get involved.
1: This will destroy Canada’s image on the world stage as a peace loving country. Many states perceive this action as one that is aggressive. Though the passage runs through Canada, under international law many states including Canada have free access to international shipping routes. Canada would be seen as violating this principle. Canada generally benefits from a good international reputation as a kind country that is peaceful, and this would forever ruin that reputation abroad.
2: Stationing many military outposts so close to the Arctic, which is a disputed region as well as the northern border with Russia could cause them to get worried. Russia could also start to position more military around that region preemptively or after the passage is fully open in order to protect the safe passage of their commercial vessels. The more confrontations of this sort happen, and the more boats, and planes are operating within this region; the more you incur the risk of there being an escalation between Russia and the West. This militarization is not worth this risk.
3: Irrespective of anything else in this debate, militarizing this passage would be very hard. Canada does not have a substantial military budget, and in particular does not have a substantial navy or air force. To militarize this successfully would require purchasing a great deal of equipment from other states, and massively increasing the military budget. This would come at the tradeoff of other government funding initiatives, like health care or infrastructure, and would lead to increased government debt.
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