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TheMunk Debates are a semi-annual series ofdebates on major policy issues held inToronto,Ontario,Canada. They are run by the Aurea Foundation, a charitable foundation set up byPeter Munk, founder of mining companyBarrick Gold, and his wife Melanie Munk. The debate series was founded in 2008 by Munk andRudyard Griffiths, who moderates most of the debates.
The Munk debates are held in Toronto, at steadily larger venues as they have proven popular. Tickets are sold to the general public, and sell out shortly after being made available.
A poll is taken from the audience both before and after each debate. The winner of the debate is determined by how many people are persuaded to move from one opinion side to the other. The debates have been broadcast onCBC Radio'sIdeas as well asCPAC. The more recent ones have also appeared on international broadcasters includingBBC andC-SPAN.
| Date | Motion | Pro | Con | Winner | Swing | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 26, 2008 | Be it resolved, the world is a safer place with a Republican in the White House. | Charles Krauthammer andNiall Ferguson | Samantha Power andRichard Holbrooke | Pro | 17% | Royal Ontario Museum |
| Dec 1, 2008 | Be it resolved, if countries like Sudan, Somalia and Burma will not end their man-made humanitarian crises, the international community should. | Gareth Evans andMia Farrow | John Bolton andRick Hillier | Con | 9% | Royal Ontario Museum |
| June 1, 2009 | Be it resolved, foreign aid does more harm than good. | Hernando de Soto Polar andDambisa Moyo | Stephen Lewis andPaul Collier | Pro | 2% | Royal Ontario Museum |
| Dec 1, 2009 | Be it resolved, climate change is mankind's defining crisis, and demands a commensurate response. | George Monbiot andElizabeth May | Bjørn Lomborg andNigel Lawson | Con | 8% | The Royal Conservatory of Music |
| June 7, 2010 | Be it resolved, I would rather get sick in the United States than Canada. | Bill Frist andDavid Gratzer | Howard Dean and Robert Bell | Draw | 0% | The Royal Conservatory of Music |
| Nov 26, 2010 | Be it resolved, religion is a force for good in the world. | Tony Blair | Christopher Hitchens | Pro | 7% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| June 17, 2011 | Be it resolved, the 21st century will belong to China. | Niall Ferguson andDavid Daokui Li | Henry Kissinger andFareed Zakaria | Con | 1% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| Nov 14, 2011 | Be it resolved, North America faces a Japan-style era of high unemployment and slow growth. | Paul Krugman and David Rosenberg | Lawrence Summers andIan Bremmer | Con | 1% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| May 25, 2012 | Be it resolved, the European experiment has failed. | Niall Ferguson andJosef Joffe | Daniel Cohn-Bendit andPeter Mandelson | Pro | 1% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| November 26, 2012 | Be it resolved, the world cannot tolerate an Iran with nuclear weapons capability. | Amos Yadlin andCharles Krauthammer | Fareed Zakaria andVali Nasr | Con | 2% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| May 30, 2013 | Be it resolved, tax the rich (more). | George Papandreou andPaul Krugman | Newt Gingrich andArthur Laffer | Pro | 12% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| November 15, 2013 | Be it resolved, men are obsolete. | Hanna Rosin andMaureen Dowd | Caitlin Moran andCamille Paglia | Pro | 28% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| May 2, 2014 | Be it resolved, state surveillance is a legitimate defence of our freedoms. | Michael Hayden andAlan Dershowitz | Glenn Greenwald andAlexis Ohanian | Pro | 9% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| November 5, 2014 | Be it resolved, Obama's foreign policy is emboldening our enemies and making the world a more dangerous place. | Bret Stephens andRobert Kagan | Anne-Marie Slaughter andFareed Zakaria | Con | 11% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| April 10, 2015 | Be it resolved, the West should engage not isolate Russia. | Stephen F. Cohen andVladimir Pozner | Anne Applebaum andGarry Kasparov | Con | 10% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| Sept 28, 2015 | The Munk Debate on Canada's Foreign Policy | Stephen Harper,Tom Mulcair,Justin Trudeau | – | – | Roy Thomson Hall | |
| November 6, 2015 | Be it resolved, humankind's best days lie ahead. | Steven Pinker andMatt Ridley | Alain de Botton andMalcolm Gladwell | Pro | 2% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| April 1, 2016 | Be it resolved, give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. | Louise Arbour andSimon Schama | Nigel Farage andMark Steyn | Con | 22% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| September 30, 2016 | Be it resolved, Donald Trump can make America great again. | Newt Gingrich andLaura Ingraham | Robert Reich andJennifer Granholm | Pro | 6% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| April 28, 2017 | Be it resolved, theliberal international order is over. | Niall Ferguson | Fareed Zakaria | Con | 5% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| October 12, 2017 | Be it resolved, American democracy is in its worst crisis in a generation and Donald J. Trump is to blame. | Andrew Sullivan andE. J. Dionne | Newt Gingrich andKimberly Strassel | Con | 3% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| May 18, 2018 | Be it resolved, what you call political correctness, I call progress. | Michael Eric Dyson andMichelle Goldberg | Stephen Fry andJordan Peterson | Con | 6% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| November 2, 2018 | Be it resolved, the future of western politics is populist not liberal. | Steve Bannon | David Frum | Draw* | 0% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| May 9, 2019 | Be it resolved, China is a threat to the liberal international order. | H. R. McMaster andMichael Pillsbury | Kishore Mahbubani andWang Huiyao | Con* | 2% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| December 4, 2019 | Be it resolved, the capitalist system is broken. It's time to try something different. | Katrina Vanden Heuvel andYanis Varoufakis | Arthur Brooks andDavid Brooks | Con | 2% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| May 12, 2022 | Be it resolved, ending the world's worst geopolitical crisis in a generation starts with acknowledging Russia's security interests. | John Mearsheimer andStephen Walt | Michael McFaul andRadosław Sikorski | Con | 16% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| November 30, 2022 | Be it resolved, don't trust Mainstream Media. | Douglas Murray andMatt Taibbi | Malcolm Gladwell andMichelle Goldberg | Pro | 19% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| June 22, 2023 | Be it resolved, AI research and development poses an existential threat. | Max Tegmark andYoshua Bengio | Melanie Mitchell andYann LeCun | Con | 3% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| November 3, 2023 | Be it resolved, liberalism gets the big questions right. | George Will andJacob Rees-Mogg | Ash Sarkar andSohrab Ahmari | Con | 14% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| June 17, 2024 | Be it resolved, anti-Zionism is antisemitism. | Douglas Murray andNatasha Hausdorff | Mehdi Hasan andGideon Levy | Pro | 5% | Roy Thomson Hall |
| May 29, 2025 | Be it resolved, this is America's golden age. | Kellyanne Conway andKevin Roberts | Ezra Klein andBen Rhodes | Con | 1% | Roy Thomson Hall |
* Indicates a corrected count. The initial tally was incorrect; table includes the final, corrected accounting.
In 2018, the debates hostedSteve Bannon, resulting in calls by several Canadian politicians for that debate to be cancelled.[1] A rally outsideRoy Thomson Hall over the debate resulted in the arrest of 12 people.[2] The debate was held anyway. The next day, the Munk Debates announced a correction: a "technical error" had led to releasing an inaccurate debate result, wrongly stating that Bannon's arguments had swayed the audience in favor of populism. Actually, there was no net change in audience opinion.[3]
In 2019, the debates continued to be "financially underwritten by the Canadian charitable foundation, Aurea."[4]
Munk Debates proposed aleaders debate onforeign policy during the2019 Canadian election.Justin Trudeau,Andrew Scheer,Jagmeet Singh andElizabeth May were invited. Singh, Scheer and May agreed to attend.[4][5]Maxime Bernier was not invited.[6] The debate was cancelled when Trudeau refused to attend.[7]
A scheduled November 2024 debate onDonald Trump's upcoming second term as US president had to be cancelled at the last minute when one of the signed debaters,Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was nominated by Trump for the position ofSecretary of Health and Human Services and was told by the administration not to engage in public discussions before hisSenate confirmation hearing.[8]