Students speak up at first public oratory contest

Seven CEGEP students gathered from different institutions at John Abbott College Monday afternoon to throw themselves on stage for the First Intercollegiate Public Speaking Contest between the province's four English CEGEPs, but only one could claim the top spot. "(The speech topic) has to be something you're passionate about," said first-place winner Julia Ferreira, a first-year Vanier College student who had followed her own advice earlier during the contest as she wowed the crowd of students with her passionate delivery about the role of stereotypes in the music industry. "Where's the next female American president? Dancing in a music video next to 50 Cent," Ferreira said in her opening remarks, immediately capturing the audience's attention.

In second place came John Abbott College first-year student Jordan Sazant, who also proved to be most popular with the audience, as he grabbed a People's Choice Award voted by them as well. "I wanted to tell people about the injustice system," Sazant said, and particularly the unfair gap between how the rich and the poor are treated by the courts.

The subject had appealed to him after he heard of three particular cases south of the border.

The cases, of course, became fodder for him to make his point about the lack of justice. He focused first on Michael Vick and Donte Stallworth, NFL players who were arrested for leading a dog fight and torturing and killing dogs, and killing someone whilst driving intoxicated, respectively.

The third case he focused on was that of Matthew Crippen, a 27-year-old university student who was arrested for illegally modifying some video game consoles to allow them to play pirated games.

Sazant drove his point home by revealing Crippen received a 10-year jail sentence, whereas Vick got less than two years, and Stallworth 30 days.

He also struck closer to home when he brought up the example of Norbourg founder Vincent Lacroix, who was found guilty of defrauding 9,200 investors in his company in 2007 of millions of dollars, and served less than a year of a five-year term before getting out. Lacroix is now in jail over additional criminal charges for a sentence of 13 years, but "he could be out again by 2011," Sazant recalled. "That is, indeed, a slap in the face to the 9,200 investors trying to rebuild their lives," he said.

In third place came Jessica Ciccarello, a Dawson College student who chose to speak about planning for success. "We chase it all our lives," Ciccarello said of this elusive goal, adding it is important to take risks in all endeavours to eventually reach benefits. "Remind yourself that opportunity is endless," she also said to her fellow students, encouraging them not to rest on their laurels when they reach a particular goal in their lives.

Winners each received prize packages that included gift certificates from the Paragraph Bookstore, as well as money from either Caisse Populaire Desjardins or educational publisher Pearson Education Canada.

The People's Choice Award consisted of money donated by ING Direct Canada.

Judges at the contest were Pia Ricci, Business Development Manager at Caisse Populaire Desjardins des Sources-Lac-Saint-Louis, Ginette Sheehy, director-general of John Abbott College, and Marc Lalonde, news director of The Chronicle, Cités Nouvelles, Westmount Examiner and themonitor.ca.