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. A chastened Flanagan later said that he had played a role in this brand of negative politics. In a 2014 interview with Margaret Wente, Flanagan said that as an architect of Harper's Conservative party, he was "complicit in the cultivation of a climate of ruthlessness that put the PM into power and has kept him there". In this political culture, "people and principles are expendable" and "dissent is not tolerated". Flanagan said he had to accept his "share of blame". Originally, Flanagan had thought that the "only way to beat the Liberals at their own game" was to be ruthless. In May 2018, Cooper, Flanagan, Knopff and Morton were awarded the "Tax Fighter Award" by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. In his introduction, Mark Milke described the Calgary School by its four original members, Cooper, Flanagan, Knopff and Morton. Milke described the Calgary School's "driving idea" through the lens of Tom Flanagan's perspective, influenced by the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek. Hayek said that "spontaneous order arises when people are left to spontaneously order themselves ... We do not require the state to help organize us." In 2020, Barry Cooper, who founded the climate change denying NGO Friends of Science in 2002, 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." Cooper has been associated with the Calgary School since its inception. Other influences at the University of Calgary By 2019, the University of Calgary placed a greater emphasis on indigenous scholarship and education, 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