Mr. Speaker, I also join with other MPs in paying tribute to the late Stanley Knowles.
Mr. Knowles' contributions to this House and to Canada are well known. His consistent advocacy of social legislation to help the old, the sick, the young and the poor, his advocacy in defence of democracy mainly through the development and the improvement of the rules and procedures of the House, his contributions and accomplishments as a social democrat are a monument in themselves and there is little we can do to add to their lustre.
There is one other dimension of Mr. Knowles' life and career that we should not lose sight of in praising his accomplishments as a social democrat. Stanley Knowles began his career as a minister of the Christian gospel. All the old western populace movements, Réal, Social Credit, the Progressives, the CCF, which later became the NDP, all had a spiritual dimension to their beginnings and their mission.
Mr. Knowles, like his friends and collaborators J.S. Woodsworth and Tommy Douglas who were also Christian ministers in the Methodist and Baptist traditions, was a part of the social gospel movement, a movement that true religion encompassed not only the vertical relationship of individuals to God but also the horizontal dimension of service to one's fellow man.
I think of Stanley Knowles as a servant of Canada, as a servant of his party, as a servant of this House and a servant of the common people. But I also think of him as a servant of a higher master.
It is an honour to pay tribute to him today in all the dimensions of his service.