The Calgary School is a term coined by Ralph Hedlin in an article in the now defunct Alberta Report in reference to four political science professors – Tom Flanagan, Rainer Knopff, Ted Morton, and Barry F. Cooper – who became colleagues at Alberta's University of Calgary in the early 1980s. They shared and promoted similar ideas about how political scientists could shape the rise of a particular kind of conservatism in Canada – informed by theories based on Friedrich Hayek and Leo Strauss. Milke said that the Calgary School's "driving idea" was informed by Tom Flanagan's understanding of the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek. Hayek had said that "spontaneous order arises when people are left to spontaneously order themselves ... We do not require the state to help organize us." When they completed their PhDs in the 1980s, they were hired by the University of Calgary. They shared Flanagan's discontent with the eastern establishment in Ottawa. Knopff and Morton opposed the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Morton, who received his dual American-Canadian citizenship in 1993, grew up in the United States.
Cooper and Flanagan met in the mid-1960s while pursuing doctoral studies at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. In the 1990s Levant worked in Preston Manning's office in Ottawa, where he joined Rahim Jaffer, Jason Kenney and Rob Anders in what became known in Ottawa as the "Snack Pack".
Bercuson, who had been at the University of Calgary since 1970, had earned his PhD in history at the University of Toronto with a focus on liberal and social democratic theory. Over the years he became more conservative. Bercuson was not a political scientist like Flanagan, Knopff, Morton but he co-published with Cooper because of a shared interest in military history. and has self-described as a Hayekian, They cited the "forced cohabitation" during the presidency of Bill Clinton who had to work with a Republican Congress after 1996. Both Hayek and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, who were influential in the Chicago School of Economics, had worked together in 1947 to establish the Mont Pèlerin Society, an international forum for libertarian economists.
During 1950–1962, Hayek was a faculty member of the Committee of Social Thought at the University of Chicago, where he conducted a number of influential faculty seminars. There were a number of Chicago academics who worked on research projects sympathetic to some of Hayek's own, such as Aaron Director, who was active in the Chicago School in helping to fund and establish what became the "Law and Society" program in the University of Chicago Law School. Hayek and Friedman also cooperated in support of the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists, later renamed the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, an American student organisation devoted to libertarian ideas.
2000s
Firewall Letter
On January 24, 2001, Stephen Harper, Tom Flanagan, Ted Morton, Rainer Knopff, Andrew Crooks, then-chair of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and Ken Boessenkool wrote a letter to then Premier of Alberta, Ralph Klein, which has been called the "Firewall Letter". The letter called on Albertans to insulate themselves against an "increasingly hostile" Liberal federal government. The group called for the creation of a provincial pension plan, similar to the Quebec Pension Plan, a provincial police force, such as those in Quebec and Ontario, an Alberta provincial income tax, like the one that Quebec had, Senate reform, and Alberta's complete control over its provincial health care.
In 2001, Flanagan was the Canadian Taxpayers Federation's director, Morton was Alberta Senator-elect, and Boessenkool was chief of staff to Premier Christy Clark. Boessenkool had previously served as Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day's policy adviser.
In December 2003, Flanagan worked on the merger of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and the successor to the Reform Party the Canadian Alliance that created the new Conservative Party of Canada.
In March 2004, Stephen Harper was elected as the leader of the newly formed Conservative Party. Flanagan played a key role in the development of the new party's platform, helped to build its successful fundraising campaign, and worked on its 2006 election campaign. In 2006, Harper became prime minister. A 2004 article in The Walrus, entitled "The Man Behind Stephen Harper" said that the "Calgary School" which included Tom Flanagan, Rainer Knopff, Ted Morton, David Bercuson, and Barry Cooper, was a politically conservative group supporting "a rambunctious, Rocky Mountain brand of libertarianism" that seeks "lower taxes, less federal government, and free markets unfettered by social programs such as medicare that keep citizens from being forced to pull up their own socks." Ted Morton had served in Progressive Conservative government of Alberta cabinet as finance minister in the Ed Stelmach government and energy minister in the first Alison Redford-led government.
From about 2006 on, Prime Minister Harper and his caucus were often "at odds with" Flanagan. When Flanagan was criticized for his "glib" remarks "calling for the assassination of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange", the Conservative party representative said that "Flanagan speaks for himself. He doesn't speak for the government and he hasn't advised the PM for years. I certainly don't share his views."
Tom Flanagan remembered Danielle Smith as was one of his most promising students in his statistics class at the University of Calgary. In a 2009 interview, Flanagan remembered her as one of his best students.
In 2013, Flanagan was still a political scientist and author who was respected by many . He was a "sought-after commentator in the media with a regular spot on CBC Television, and an effective Conservative political activist who had once served as Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff." All that ended abruptly in the wake of controversial comments he had made in Lethbridge following his talk on the Indian Act. Flanagan's libertarian response to questions about child pornography met with immediate consequences. He had become a pariah within hours – he was denounced by then-Prime Minister Harper, Danielle Smith, and other political allies. After over four decades with the University of Calgary, he was "trashed". He was fired as a CBC commentator. submitted a commissioned report to Alberta Premier Jason Kenney's Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns. In his report, Cooper said "The apocalyptic rhetoric of so much current environmental discourse is unlikely to end anytime soon. The evocation of an apocalypse has been part of Western political symbolism since the book of Daniel in the Hebrew bible." which is reflected in the appointments of indigenous researchers, as well as the recognition of indigenous politics and law as a research field within the departments of Political Science and Law respectively. Additionally, the Department of Political Science has developed a strong research interest in feminist and gender politics, even considering it a prominent research field. Faculty in the Department of Political Science condemned criticisms by Premier Jason Kenney who said their work aligned with the Alberta New Democratic Party. Trevor Tombe, a prominent member of the Department of Economics faculty supports carbon pricing as an effective method of achieving climate targets. Faculty members in the Department of Economics promote the implementation of a provincial sales tax in Alberta, as a means to prevent drastic austerity policies. The Faculty of Law has also produced two Alberta cabinet ministers under Rachel Notley's New Democratic government, Kathleen Ganley and Irfan Sabir.