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, 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. Early life and career Born in Los Angeles, California, Knowles was the third child of Margaret (née Murdock) and Stanley Ernest Knowles of Canada. 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. He visited relatives on the Canadian Prairie when he was 16 and decided to stay and enrolled at Brandon College in 1927. Knowles was brought up as a fundamentalist Methodist but was won over to the social gospel movement, and became a United Church minister after meeting J. S. Woodsworth at the annual conference of the Student Christian Movement of Canada, a fledgling ecumenical social justice movement founded in 1921. Knowles was ordained in 1933 after graduating from theological college. Political career 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. He was first elected to the House of Commons in a 1942 by-election in Winnipeg North Centre that was held on the death of former CCF leader J. S. Woodsworth. He became an expert on parliamentary procedure, and used his skills to humiliate the Liberal government of Louis St. Laurent during the 1956 Pipeline Debate. 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,