Barry Cooper (political scientist)

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.[8][9][10] The group's focus has been to influence public affairs over the long term.[notes 1] 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 entitled 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 statements by the RCAP that, "(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."[11]

In its early years, in the late 1990s, this small group of Calgary-based political science professors—specifically Calgary School members—had some influence on Canadian public policy, according to one article by David J. Rovinsky at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a public policy research institution based in Washington, DC[8]^:10 In his "Advice to progressives from the Calgary School" in the Literary Review of Canada, Tom Flanagan said that "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."[12]

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 Bjorn Lomborg—a Danish climate skeptic Bjorn Lomborg—to Calgary. Lomburg also worked with the Friends of Science to provide counter climate change arguments.[13]

The Friends of Science openly criticized the Kyoto Protocol and the science behind it. The group "offers critical evidence that challenges the premises of the Kyoto Protocol and presents alternative causes for climate change." Friends of Science:About Us.

By 2004, as faculty member of the University of Calgary, political scientist Barry Cooper, set up the Science Education Fund which could accept donations through the Calgary Foundation. The 57-year-old charity, 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 [notes 2] 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,[notes 3][16] who shared the Friends' views on climate change.[17] Cooper's involvement in the funding of this group was called into question in 2006, when it was reported he helped start a University of Calgary fund called the Science Education Fund, which accepted monies from Alberta oil and gas companies, foundations and individuals and then used some of that charitable donation to use in the Friends of Science group, to produce a video, available at friendsofscience.org.[14][15]

In April 2005, Friends of Science released a 23-minute on-line video directed by Mike Visser, entitled "Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You're Not Being Told About the Science of Climate Change" [18] that contrasts the views of politicians and scientists on the question of climate change. The video featured consultant Tim Ball, Sallie L. Baliunas, Professor of Geology Tim Patterson of Carleton University, Ross McKitrick and Professor of Political Science Barry F. Cooper of the University of Calgary, all of whom are known for skepticism with regard to the mainstream scientific view on global warming. A second edition was released 13 September 2007.

In 2014 Friends of Science released a billboard in Calgary, Alberta claiming that the sun, and not human activity, is the primary driver of global warming.[6]

In 2020, Cooper submitted a 28-page report, entitled "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"—"Cooper Report",[19] which had been commissioned by the Government of Alberta's "Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns".

• 2020 Barry Cooper (2020). 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 (PDF) (Report). Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns. Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary. p. 28. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 18, 2021. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
• 2005 Moens, A. Alexander; Cooper, Barry (2005). "Canadian participation in North American missile defence: a cost-benefit analysis" (PDF). Fraser Institute. Vancouver. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
• 2005 Miljan, Lydia; Cooper, Barry (2005), "The Canadian "garrison mentality" and anti-Americanism at the CBC", Fraser Institute, Vancouver
• 2005 Szeto, Ray; Cooper, Barry (2005), "The need for Canadian strategic lift", Fraser Institute, Vancouver
• 2004 Cooper, Barry (2004), "Privacy and security in an age of terrorism", Fraser Institute, Vancouver
• 2004 Cooper, Barry (2004), New political religions, or, an analysis of modern terrorism, Columbia: University of Missouri Press
• 2003 Miljan, Lydia; Cooper, Barry (2003), "Hidden agendas : how journalists influence the news", UBC Press, Vancouver
• 2002 Cooper, Barry (2002), "Unholy terror: the origin and significance of contemporary, religion-based terrorism", Fraser Institute, Vancouver
• 2000 Cooper, Barry; Kanji, Mebs (2000), "Governing in post-deficit times: Alberta in the Klein years", Centre for Public Management, University of Toronto, Toronto
• 1999 Cooper, Barry (July 21, 1999). Eric Voegelin and the Foundations of Modern Political Science (1 ed.). Columbia: University of Missouri. ISBN 978-0-8262-1229-0. On Eric Voegelin (1901–1985).
• 1996 Cooper, Barry (1996), "The Klein achievement", Centre for Public Management, University of Toronto, Toronto
• Bercuson, David Jay, 1945-. Derailed: the betrayal of the national dream / David J. Bercuson and Barry Cooper. -- Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1994.
• Cooper, Barry, 1943-. Sins of omission: shaping the news at CBC TV / Barry Cooper. -- Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994.
• 1991 Cooper, Barry (June 1, 1991). Action into Nature: An Essay on the Meaning of Technology. University of Notre Dame Press. ISBN 978-0-268-00629-7.
• Bercuson, David Jay, 1945-. Deconfederation: Canada without Quebec / David Jay Bercuson, Barry Cooper. -- Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1991.
• Cooper, Barry, 1943-. Action into nature: an essay on the meaning of technology / Barry Cooper. -- Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991.
• Bercuson, David Jay, 1945-. Goodbye ... et bonne chance! : les adieux du Canada anglais au Quebec / David J. Bercusson, Barry Cooper; traduit de l'anglais par Claude Fafard et Stephen Dupont. -- Montréal: Le Jour, 1991.
• The Resurgence of conservatism in Anglo-American democracies / edited by Barry Cooper, Allan Kornberg, and William Mishler. -- Durham: Duke University Press, 1988.
• Cooper, Barry, 1943-. Alexander Kennedy Isbister: a respectable critic of the honourable Company / Barry Cooper. -- Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1988.
• Cooper, Barry, 1943-. Old modes and orders some limits to George Grant's Political theory / Barry Cooper. -- [Canada: s.n.], 1984.
• Cooper, Barry, 1943-. The end of history: an essay on modern Hegelianism / Barry Cooper. -- Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984.
• Cooper, Barry, 1943-. Michel Foucault, an introduction to the study of his thought / Barry Cooper. -- New York, Toronto: E. Mellen Press, 1981.
• Cooper, Barry, 1943-. Merleau-Ponty and Marxism: from terror to reform / Barry Cooper. -- Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979.

• University of Calgary's faculty page about Cooper