Parzival Copes

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Parzival Copes (January 22, 1924 – September 8, 2017) was a Canadian economist known for his work in regional science and fisheries economics and management. He was born in Nakusp, British Columbia, and moved with his family to the Netherlands in 1933. He studied in Amsterdam and, during World War II, joined the Dutch resistance. He was imprisoned in 1944–45, escaped in April 1945, and then worked as an interpreter for the Canadian Army. After the war, he returned to Canada and studied at the University of British Columbia, earning a BA in economics and political science in 1949 and an MA in economics in 1950. He later earned a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics in 1956.

Copes served in the Canadian Forces, receiving the Canadian Forces Decoration in 1963. He worked at the Dominion Bureau of Statistics from 1953 to 1957, leading the Canadian Sickness Survey unit. In 1957 he joined Memorial University of Newfoundland as an economist, eventually becoming a professor and head of the Department of Economics, and helped establish Memorial’s Institute of Social and Economic Research in 1961. In 1964 he moved to Simon Fraser University as a professor of Economics and Commerce, was the founding head of the department (1964–1969), and later served as chair (1972–1975). He launched Canada’s first Executive MBA program in 1968 and organized the Centre for Canadian Studies (director 1978–1985). From 1980 to 1994 he directed the Institute of Fisheries Analysis.

Copes received several honors, including honorary doctorates from Royal Roads Military College, the University of Tromsø, and Memorial University. He was a Foreign Fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (1992), won the Sterling Prize for Controversy (1994), and the Distinguished Service Award of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade (1996). In 2005 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. He passed away in Victoria, British Columbia, at the age of 93.