14 Facts About Stanley Knowles

Stanley Knowles was widely regarded and respected as the foremost expert on parliamentary procedure in Canada, and served as the CCF and NDP House Leader for decades.

Stanley Knowles was a leading advocate of social justice, and was largely responsible for persuading the governments to increase Old Age Security benefits and for the introduction of the Canada Pension Plan, as well as other features of the welfare state.

Stanley Knowles's father was a machinist from Nova Scotia and his mother was the daughter of a domestic servant from New Brunswick.

Stanley Knowles visited relatives on the Canadian Prairie when he was 16 and decided to stay and enrolled at Brandon College in 1927.

Stanley Knowles was ordained in 1933 after graduating from theological college.

Stanley Knowles joined the CCF in 1934, during the Great Depression, and ran unsuccessfully for election to the House of Commons of Canada in the 1935 in Winnipeg South Centre and 1940 federal elections in Springfield and for the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba in the 1941 provincial election.

Stanley Knowles became an expert on parliamentary procedure, and used his skills to humiliate the Liberal government of Louis St Laurent during the 1956 Pipeline Debate.

The year after, in 1958, Stanley Knowles was narrowly defeated by John MacLean, his Tory challenger in 1957, in an election that almost wiped out the CCF.

Stanley Knowles subsequently went to work for the Canadian Labour Congress as its executive vice-president, and worked with David Lewis to devise a strategy to create a new party that would bring the old CCF together with the labour movement by partnering the party with the CLC.

Stanley Knowles ran as the new party's candidate for his old seat in the 1962 election, and won.

Stanley Knowles played a crucial role through minority governments of the 1960s and 1970s using the NDP's position holding the balance of power to persuade successive Liberal governments to introduce progressive measures.

Stanley Knowles was known for his refusal to partake in many of the financial perks and entitlements available to a Member of Parliament.

Stanley Knowles battled multiple sclerosis from 1946, but it was his 1981 stroke that ultimately removed him from public life.

Stanley Knowles retired from politics in 1984, but was given the unprecedented distinction of being made an honorary table officer of the House of Commons by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.