Quote Originally Posted by Vlad Rekhson View Post
At least we know that the person is making an effort. The problem with sending someone who was the top Canadian but who didn't actually win the tournament is that the Swiss system is not that great at determining second place. It is designed to determine the winner of a large competition in a relatively few rounds, but second place is often quite random.
The Swiss system takes at most n rounds to find a clear winners in a field of 2 powers n players but usually, with a normal number of draws, a clear winner can be found in 2 powers n-1 rounds. For every position other the the first one that must be clearly defined, two more rounds are required. Source, the obsolete FIDE Organisers Handbook. With the small turnout at both our Zonals, we can say that the second player has been reliably determined.