[1] It sanctions several official annual tournaments and represents Canadian debating domestically and abroad.

Its membership consists of student debating unions, sanctioned by their respective universities, from across Canada.

[3] Many prominent Canadians were university debaters, including Prime Ministers Justin Trudeau, Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney, MP John Godfrey, Canadian Supreme Court justices Ian Binnie and Morris Fish, songwriter Leonard Cohen, entrepreneur Moses Znaimer, environmentalist David Suzuki, and journalist Ian Hanomansing.

CUSID debaters have gone on to notable careers in law, business, government and academia and the presidency of the organization is a highly sought-after position.

In 2020, for the first time in history, the society was forced to cancel its Canadian Parliamentary National Debating Championship due to the risk presented by COVID-19.

There have been seven CUSID Presidents who have won either of the National Championships during their term as President: Jason Brent (1992), Gerald Butts (1993), Robert Silver (2000), Vinay Mysore (2010), Louis Tsilivis (2013), Harar Hall (2019), and Daniel Svirsky (2023, 2024).

[14] Additionally, a new modification to the prior CUSID Central and East times was introduced at the 2003 McGill University Winter Carnival Invitational called the Prime Minister's Rebuttal Extension (PMRE).

The PMRE allows the government team the option to take a 6-minute PMC and 4-minute PMR and was designed to help compensate for the alleged inherent advantage to the opposition side.

In most rounds, the resolution is "squirrelable", meaning that the government team can propose any topic it wants for debate.

[citation needed] "Points of information" are generally permitted and expected in the standard Canadian Parliamentary style.