he asked Knowles to become Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada. Knowles declined. On April 3, 1957, Knowles noted that the reason only 37 of the 259 members of the House of Commons were present at the Chamber's night session was because those not present had accompanied their daughters to a controversial concert by US singer Elvis Presley, which resulted in a non quorum situation. The year after, 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. Knowles ran as the new party's candidate for his old seat in the 1962 election, and won. He 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. Knowles was also known for his refusal to partake in many of the financial perks and entitlements available to a Member of Parliament. For the entirety of his career in politics, he boarded with the family of Susan Mann when in Ottawa rather than purchasing a residence of his own. Mann herself later published a biography of Knowles, Stanley Knowles: The Man from Winnipeg North Centre, in 1982. In 1979, he became a member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada on the advice of Prime Minister Joe Clark. Retirement Knowles battled multiple sclerosis from 1946, but it was his 1981 stroke that ultimately removed him from public life. He 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. This allowed him to spend his retirement viewing parliamentary debates from the floor of the House,