Barry Cooper (political scientist) explained

Barry Cooper
Birth Name:Fraser Barry Cooper
Nationality:Canadian
School Tradition:Calgary School
Discipline:Political science
Workplaces:University of Calgary

Fraser Barry Cooper (born 1943) is a Canadian political scientist at the University of Calgary. Before coming to Calgary, he taught at Bishop's University (1968–1970), McGill University, and York University (1970–1981). The winner of a Killam Research Fellowship, he is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 1991, Cooper wrote Action into Nature: An Essay on the Meaning of Technology[1] and he co-authored Deconfederation: Canada without Quebec, in which he argued that Canada would benefit from Quebec separation. He is also the author of the 1999 publication Eric Voegelin and the Foundations of Modern Political Science.[2]

He is a fellow at the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies and a senior research fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute. As a regular columnist for the Calgary Herald, Cooper is a frequent commentator on Canadian political issues. He attended high school at Shawnigan Lake School, on Vancouver Island, and received degrees from the University of British Columbia and Duke University.[3] [4]

Cooper is an advocate of climate denialism, Quebec separatism, Western Canadian separatism,[5] with Alberta as an independent, sovereign jurisdiction within Canada.[6]

Calgary School

Cooper is a member of a group of conservative political scientists, the Calgary School, which also includes Tom Flanagan, Rainer Knopff, Ted Morton, and David Bercuson.[7] [8] [9] The group's focus has been to influence public affairs over the long term.[10] Cooper, like other members of the Calgary School, strongly advocate against First Nations rights to land and special privilege. In his arguments in a January 2013 article,[11] he cites controversial publication, First Nations? Second Thoughts, in which he countered arguments presented in the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People(1996). Both this publication and Cooper's article argue against these statements by the RCAP: "(1) Aboriginals are privileged because they were here first; (2) there are no significant differences between European and Indian civilizations so that (3) Indians are sovereign nations; accordingly (4) treaties were nation-to-nation agreements that (5) affirmed aboriginal sovereignty and ownership of the land."

In its early years, in the late 1990s, members of the small Calgary School, a group of Calgary-based political science professors, had some influence on Canadian public policy according to an article by David J. Rovinsky from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a public policy research institution based in Washington, DC.[7] In his "Advice to Progressives from the Calgary School" in the Literary Review of Canada, Tom Flanagan wrote, "Knopff and Morton took on judicial activism. Cooper and Bercuson's Deconfederation undermined the Meech Lake agenda of endless concessions to Quebec. In First Nations? Second Thoughts, I stood up against the juggernaut of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. All these books were widely discussed in the media and have had some impact on the course of public affairs."

Climate change

During his tenure as the director of the Calgary branch of the Fraser Institute from 1999 to 2005, Cooper began to focus on climate change. He invited Bjørn Lomborg, a Danish climate change denier who also worked with the Friends of Science to provide arguments against climate change, [12] to Calgary.

The Friends of Science opposes the Kyoto Protocol and claims to offer "critical evidence that challenges the premises of the Kyoto Protocol and presents alternative causes for climate change."[13]

By 2004, Cooper set up the Science Education Fund which could accept donations through the Calgary Foundation. The Calgary Foundation administers charitable giving in the Calgary area and had "a policy of guarding donors' identities." Albert Jacobs, a geologist and retired oil-explorations manager and member of the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists who formed the Friends of Science, described how donations from oil and gas industry donors were passed on to the Science Education Fund set up by Barry Cooper, which in turn supported the activities of the Friends of Science.[14] [15]

In 2004, Talisman Energy, a Calgary-based, global oil and gas exploration and production company, one of Canada's largest independent oil and gas companies, donated $175,000[16] to fund a University of Calgary-based "public relations project designed to cast doubt on scientific evidence linking human activity to global warming." Journalist Mike De Souza published the list of significant donations to the Friends of Science which had been received by the press, in an article published in the Vancouver Sun in 2011. Sydney Kahanoff, a Calgary oil and gas executive and philanthropist donated $50,000 through his Kahanoff Foundation, a charity he established in 1979. Murphy Oil matched one of its employees $1,050 donations. Douglas Leahey defended the donations to the Friends of Science from the then CEO of Talisman Energy, James Buckee,[17] [18] who shared the Friends' views on climate change.[19] Cooper's involvement in the funding of that group was called into question in 2006, when it was reported he helped start a University of Calgary fund the Science Education Fund, which accepted monies from Alberta oil and gas companies, foundations, and individuals and then used some of that charitable donation in the Friends of Science group to produce a video, which is available at friendsofscience.org.[14] [15]

In April 2005, Friends of Science released a 23-minute online video directed by Mike Visser, "Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You're Not Being Told About the Science of Climate Change."[20] The video featured consultant Tim Ball, Sallie L. Baliunas, Tim Patterson, Ross McKitrick, and Cooper, all of whom are known for climate change denial. A second edition was release ond 13 September 2007.

In 2014, Friends of Science released a billboard in Calgary, Alberta, claiming that the sun, not human activity, is the primary driver of global warming.[21]

In 2020, Cooper submitted a 28-page report, "Background Report on Changes in the Organization and Ideology of Philanthropic Foundations with a Focus on Environmental Issues as Reflected in Contemporary Social Science Research." Also called the "Cooper Report,"[22] it had been commissioned by the government of Jason Kenney's Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns.

Western alienation and Alberta sovereignty

Cooper is an advocate of Western Canadian separatism,[5] [23] Cooper co-authored the September 2021 "Free Alberta Strategy" with lawyers, Rob Anderson and Derek From in which they called for Alberta's recognition as a sovereign jurisdiction within Canada.[6] The initiative was supported by United Conservative Party MLAs, Angela Pitt, Jason Stephan, Drew Barnes, and Todd Loewen.[6]

Selected works

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Cooper, Barry. University of Notre Dame Press. 978-0-268-00629-7. Action into Nature: An Essay on the Meaning of Technology. June 1, 1991.
  2. Book: Cooper, Barry. 1. University of Missouri. 978-0-8262-1229-0. Eric Voegelin and the Foundations of Modern Political Science. Columbia. July 21, 1999.
  3. Web site: Opinion - Columnists - Barry Cooper - Calgary Herald . 2018-10-04 . https://web.archive.org/web/20141008122134/http://www.calgaryherald.com/columnists/Barry_Cooper.html . 2014-10-08 . dead .
  4. Web site: Profile . Barry Cooper . Department of Political Science, University of Calgary. January 18, 2021.
  5. Web site: Cooper. Barry. 2020-06-23. Western Alienation: Forget Alienation - Separate (w/ Barry Cooper). live. https://web.archive.org/web/20200930231032/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFyIgMds6YY . 2020-09-30 . 2020-07-03. YouTube.
  6. Web site: Free Alberta Strategy Group (Including Med. Hat MLA) Calls on Premier to Make Alberta a Sovereign Jurisdiction . Prairie Post . September 28, 2021 . September 28, 2021 . September 28, 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210928205413/https://prairiepost.com/alberta/free-alberta-strategy-group-including-med-hat-mla-calls-on-premier-to-make-alberta-a/article_ec06e75a-2085-11ec-b108-d32ede70be0d.html . dead .
  7. The Ascendancy of Western Canada in Canadian Policymaking . David J. Rovinsky . February 16, 1998 . Policy Papers on the Americas . The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) . January 18, 2013.
  8. Advice to progressives from the Calgary School: Response to Sylvia Bashevkin. https://web.archive.org/web/20210109233723/https://reviewcanada.ca/?periodically_letter=advice-to-progressives-from-the-calgary-school. Literary Review of Canada. 1188-7494. Toronto, CA. Tom Flanagan. The Literary Review of Canada. 2010. 20 January 2013. 2021-01-09.
  9. Frédéric Boily, ed., Stephen Harper: De l'Ecole de Calgary au Parti conservateur: les nouveaux visages du conservatisme canadien (Québec: Les Presses de l'Université Laval, 2007).
  10. "There are tensions between the socially conservative and economically conservative factions within the school. Bercuson publicly criticized Morton's social policies by saying that they "were hard to stomach for a libertarian." (McLean, Archie. "Morton would use Alberta as his 'guinea pig': Social, religious views will drive policy, expert says", Edmonton Journal, 2 December 2006.) Such division brings into question whether its members reflect a coherent "school" of thought (Wikipedia article on Calgary School)."
  11. News: Barry Cooper . Aboriginals have no claim to sovereignty . Calgary Herald . Calgary, Alberta . January 22, 2013 . January 22, 2013 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20130207014954/http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/Cooper%2BAboriginals%2Bhave%2Bclaim%2Bsovereignty/7856654/story.html . February 7, 2013.
  12. Web site: Flanagan. Thomas. Legends of the Calgary School: Their Guns, Their Dogs, and the Women Who Love Them. VoegelinView. January 18, 2021. January 25, 2015.
  13. http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?ide=2 About Us
  14. News: Charles Montgomery . Charles Montgomery (writer) . Mr. Cool: Nurturing doubt about climate change is big business . . 2006-08-12 . 2007-05-01 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20070402110349/http://www.charlesmontgomery.ca/mrcool.html . 2007-04-02 .
  15. .
  16. According to Canwest News Service reporter, Mike De Souza's article published in the Vancouver Sun in 2011, the letter from University of Calgary account administrator, Chantal-Lee Watt, accompanying $175,000 Talisman cheque, dated 4 November 2004, was part of documents released by the University of Calgary under the orders of Franklin J. Work, the office of Alberta's information and privacy commissioner.
  17. The Calgary Herald described James Buckee's retirement from Talisman in May 2007 as the end of an oilpatch era with Buckee as one of its most colourful characters.
  18. News: Jim Buckee retires at Talisman:An oilpatch era ended Wednesday with the retirement of one of its most colourful characters. The Calgary Herald. Calgary, Alberta. 31 May 2007. 18 June 2013. https://archive.today/20130620020430/http://www.canada.com/story.html?id=fdc3b6fd-ca3e-454d-9894-f9894a0ef4dd. dead. 20 June 2013.
  19. News: Talisman Energy kick-started U of C climate skeptic fund. https://archive.today/20130620020452/http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/archives/story.html?id=15b2e521-9f14-43e6-87ac-0a21a2a79e3d&p=2. dead. 20 June 2013. Mike. De Souza. Postmedia News. 4 September 2011.
  20. Web site: Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You're Not Being Told About the Science of Climate Change. https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211214/KnipKZAhgW4 . 2021-12-14 . live. . 2007-03-05.
  21. News: Jenny Uechi. Friends of Science billboard blames climate change on the sun.
  22. Background Report on Changes in the Organization and Ideology of Philanthropic Foundations with a Focus on Environmental Issues as Reflected in Contemporary Social Science Research . Barry Cooper . University of Calgary . Calgary, Alberta . 2020 . 28 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210116201625/https://albertainquiry.ca/sites/default/files/2021-01/Cooper%20Reportv4.pdf . January 16, 2021 . January 18, 2021 . Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns.
  23. Marci . McDonald . The Man behind Stephen Harper . The Walrus . October 12, 2004 . September 28, 2021 .

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