George Thomas Hendery Cooper (born 24 June 1941 in Halifax,

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

) was a Progressive Conservative party member of the

House of Commons of Canada The House of Commons of Canada (french: Chambre des communes du Canada) is the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Crown and the Senate of Canada, they comprise the bicameral legislature of Canada. The House of Common ...

. He was a lawyer. He was elected to Parliament at the Halifax riding in the 1979 general election. He served one federal term in office, the

31st Canadian Parliament The 31st Canadian Parliament was a briefly lived parliament in session from October 9 until December 14, 1979. The membership was set by the 1979 federal election on May 22, 1979, and it was dissolved after the minority government of Joe Clark ...

, during which he was parliamentary secretary for the

Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

and the

Minister of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a v ...

. In the 1980 federal election, Cooper was defeated by

Gerald Regan Gerald Augustine Paul Regan (February 13, 1928 – November 26, 2019) was a Canadian politician (as federal MP and later as Nova Scotia MLA), who served as the 19th premier of Nova Scotia from 1970 to 1978. Early life and education Regan was ...

of the Liberals. Cooper was the first Canadian Chair of the Foundation for Educational Exchange between Canada and the United States. He helped inaugurate Fulbright scholarships for outstanding students and academics to enhance mutual understanding between our two countries. In 1986 Cooper was tasked with investigating whether the Canadian government's funding of

Donald Ewen Cameron Donald Ewen Cameron ( – ) was a Scottish-born psychiatrist. He is largely known today for his central role in unethical medical experiments, and development of psychological and medical torture techniques for the . He served as president of ...

and the

Allan Memorial Institute The Allan Memorial Institute (AMI; french: Institut Allan Memorial), also known colloquially as "The Allan", is a former psychiatric hospital and research institute located at 1025 Pine Avenue West in Montreal, Quebec. It is situated on the sl ...

, where an unknown number of psychiatric patients in Montreal were unwittingly experimented on as a part of

Project MKUltra Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra) was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), intended to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used in interrogations to weak ...

, could be considered "illegal or improper." In this investigation Cooper only interviewed government officials, excluding the late Dr. Cameron's colleagues and former patients from the report. He found that the Canadian government had "no legal or moral responsibility for the activities of Dr. D. Ewen Cameron" and that "the CIA was only involved in funding and was not involved in instigating, directing and controlling Cameron's work; and that Cameron was simply applying treatments of a kind which...had become standard practice for him." The Canadian government used the findings of the Cooper Report as evidence of their innocence in the Allan Memorial Institute experiments as recently as 2018. He was managing partner with the Law firm McInnes Cooper in the 1990s and board chair from 2006 to 2012. Cooper became the 24th President and Vice-Chancellor of the

University of King's College The University of King's College, established in 1789, is in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.Roper, Henry. "Aspects of the History of a Loyalist College: King's College, Windsor, and Nova Scotian Higher Education in the Nineteenth Century." Anglic ...

on 9 July 2012. He concluded his term on 30 June 2016. June 2017, Cooper was awarded by the University of Calgary's highest academic honour, the Doctor of Laws.

Electoral record

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, George 1941 births Lawyers in Nova Scotia Living people Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Nova Scotia People from Halifax, Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Party of Canada MPs