Board of Directors

George Cooper

Senior Partner
McInnes Cooper
Halifax

George Cooper was appointed to the Board of Directors of CBC/Radio-Canada on May 16, 2008, for a four-year term.

Mr. Cooper is a senior partner in the law firm, McInnes Cooper, in Halifax, and is also the Chair of its Board of Directors. He currently acts as Managing Trustee of the Killam Trusts, which oversee educational and scholarship trusts worth some $425 million at five Canadian universities and The Canada Council for the Arts.

His past professional and academic activities include serving on the boards of the Canadian National Railway and the University of King’s College in Halifax where he was Chair of the Board of Governors. He is a former Chair of the Foundation for Educational Exchange between Canada and the United States of America (the Fulbright Scholarship), and has also sat on the boards of a number of other corporations and income trusts. In 1979 Mr. Cooper was elected Member of Parliament for Halifax, where he served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice of Canada.

Mr. Cooper received his Bachelor’s degree in Science (1962) and his Bachelor’s degree in Laws (1965) from Dalhousie University. He later attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, where he received a Bachelor’s of Civil Law (1967), and was admitted to the Nova Scotia Bar the same year. Dalhousie University, the University of Alberta and the University of King’s College have each granted him honorary Doctor of Laws degrees in 2004, 2007 and 2008, respectively.

Mr. Cooper was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002. In addition, he is a Member of the Order of Canada and was made Officer First Class of the Royal Order of the Polar Star by His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf, King of Sweden. Mr. Cooper holds the Canadian Forces Decoration, and serves as Honorary Consul for Sweden in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador.