Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member for Churchill on two of her initial statements, the first one being that I believe everyone in the House, regardless of partisan affiliation, will recognize that Stanley Knowles was indeed someone worthy of such consideration and was honoured by the House, as the member herself mentioned.
I will now say a few words in tribute to Mr. Knowles as well. I was fortunate enough to have been in the House for a bit of the time while he was an honorary table officer. I think it is fairly well accepted that Stanley Knowles was, first and foremost, a man of the people. He was motivated by his concern for the less fortunate, some of whom are still to this day overlooked, and the undervalued members of our society. His concern for the suffering of others was rooted, some argue, in personal suffering close to home.
I will relate an incident in 1932 when his father, 57 at the time, was laid off from his machinist's job when all employees over 55 were deemed expendable by an efficiency consultant. After many years of loyal service, the elder Mr. Knowles had no severance, no unemployment insurance, no sick benefits and no pension. One could argue that this episode in Mr. Stanley Knowles' life was a benchmark event in his life and that it helped fuel his committed drive to guarantee so many elements of life that we today take for granted.
We also pay tribute to Mr. Knowles as a parliamentarian par excellence. His exceptional presence still makes itself felt in the House from time to time, when it is a question of balancing personal conscience against public perception or expectations.
It is in this room that he has left his mark, and his accomplishments are still celebrated today.
A unique figure among Canadian parliamentarians, he had a very rare privilege bestowed on him, having been given a seat at the table, near the Chair, when he was no longer a member of parliament. In fact, to this day, he remains the first and only honorary officer of the House of Commons.
We agree on that but I wish we could have perhaps avoided some partisan shots while we paid tribute to Mr. Knowles, but that is another matter.
I also agree with the member for Churchill when she says that we do not do enough in this country to recognize, acknowledge, teach and transmit the knowledge of people such as Mr. Knowles to the younger generations. I for one share that view and hope we will find ways as we evolve as a society to do more of this. It is important to make sure that the achievements of people like Mr. Knowles are communicated to our younger people so that they can get an appreciation of the values he represented.
Although I may not agree with her, as she may suspect, on whether or not the course suggested to commemorate and pay tribute to Mr. Knowles is the appropriate one, I would put some ideas on the table as to why this may not be appropriate, without demeaning the importance of Mr. Knowles, and perhaps put forward some suggestions that she may wish to consider in another forum.
There is one concern that has been alluded to by two of the opposition parties, and that is the phenomenon of too many people being honoured. For instance, I did a very cursory check at the Library before coming here. I picked three or four dates at random and asked for information out of the current edition of Canada's Who's Who , if you will—and we take that with a grain of salt because it is only living people and it is self-subscription to a certain extent—but on June 18 there are two current parliamentarians, who happen to be in the other place, who may or may not also qualify for a so-and-so day. How do we decide that without bringing in partisanship or trying to make it an extraction of partisanship?
On November 18, another date picked at random, would one want to honour Knowlton Nash? I believe everyone knows Knowlton Nash. Someone from western Canada may wish to honour Peter Pocklington, or Margaret Atwood. They were all born on the same day but in different years. One can see the complications that could arise from that, and that is just a very cursory look at this.
Another example is March 28 where we have Marshall Cohan, a fairly well-known executive; Robert Sculley, a fairly well-known television personality; a fellow by the name of Paul David Sobey, who is fairly well known in Atlantic Canada in the business community; and we have Karen Kain.
I am just trying to give examples of the kinds of difficulties we could get ourselves into. The final example would be January 26, where we have Roger Landry.
Roger Landry has just retired as a journalist for La Presse . He was and still is a very important newsmaker in Canada.
Think of someone like Claude Ryan, who is also an important Canadian newsmaker, or Wayne Gretzky. They were all born the same day.
Understandably, it would be difficult for us to approve the concept of an individual's day. And I did not name everybody.
It is not a matter of not wanting to recognize the value and contributions of certain individuals, whether in the parliamentary or education field, in the arts, business, the media or sports.
We might want to consider other options, and we have been thinking about it. The Order of Canada was created to recognize and pay tribute to the contributions of a large number of Canadians to our society, even if they were born on the same day. Some thought was given to it in the House, in a way, on other occasions. Perhaps this suggestion should be made to the House.
It is rather delicate to ask the government to recognize a parliamentarian. One might argue that it is the role of the House, and that the House or parliament could find other ways, here or elsewhere, to recognize the contribution of a great parliamentarian.
We are not against the idea of celebrate the life of Stanley Knowles. It is the way suggested here that is inappropriate. For example, we have before us three similar measures.
There is a bill from the other place to designate a certain day as Sir John A. Macdonald Day. I think a member from the Progressive Conservative Party would like a day to be designated as Samuel de Champlain Day. Unfortunately, we are going to run out of days. There is limit.
Before designating days to honour so and so, we should find other ways of doing it. I would like to make this suggestion to my colleague opposite, despite what some other members opposite might say.
