Stanley Knowles

Stanley Howard Knowles (June 18, 1908 – June 9, 1997) was a Canadian parliamentarian. Knowles represented the riding of Winnipeg North Centre from 1942 to 1958 on behalf of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and again from 1962 to 1984 representing the CCF's successor, the New Democratic Party (NDP).

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. He was also a leading advocate of social justice, His father was a machinist from Nova Scotia and his mother was the daughter of a domestic servant from New Brunswick. The couple married in Nova Scotia and emigrated to the United States in 1904, four years before Stanley's birth. This helped contribute to the government's electoral defeat in the 1957 election.

Progressive Conservative Party leader John Diefenbaker was so impressed by Knowles's skill that when he became prime minister as a result of that election, he asked Knowles to become Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada. Knowles declined. In 1958, Knowles was narrowly defeated by John MacLean, his Tory challenger in 1957, in an election that almost wiped out the CCF. His defeat in that election has been attributed both to the landslide victory won by Diefenbaker's Tories, and to the fact that Knowles spent much of the campaign travelling across Canada as a surrogate for ailing leader M.J. Coldwell rather than campaigning in his own riding. He subsequently went to work for the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) 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. This new party was launched as the New Democratic Party in 1961. Archival reference number is R6931.