Mrs. Shirley Render (St. Vital): Madam Speaker, do I have leave to make a nonpolitical statement?

Madam Speaker: Does the honourable member for St. Vital have leave to make a nonpolitical statement? [agreed]

Mrs. Render: On Thursday, June 5, the Women's Health Research Foundation held their third annual fundraising luncheon.

Madam Speaker, the event was sold out. I think this is proof positive that people wanted to support this very worthy event, and they also wanted to hear the very uplifting remarks of the keynote speaker, Ann Medina.

Each year the Women's Health Research Foundation grants scholarships to women in the scientific and medical community to finance research projects that focus on important aspects of women's health. Another speaker at the luncheon was last year's scholarship winner, Lanette Friesen, who is a Ph.D. student carrying out research targeted to earlier diagnosis of ovarian cancer with a view to significantly reducing the mortality rate of this very deadly disease.

The Women's Health Research Foundation is to be congratulated for the vision and the energy it brings to addressing many critical health issues affecting women, and I would like to wish them continued success in their very worthy efforts. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker: Does the honourable Leader of the official opposition have leave? [agreed]

Mr. Doer: We were saddened today to hear of the passing of Stanley Knowles. I want to pay tribute to Stanley Knowles here this afternoon. Stanley Knowles, of course, is a great Canadian, a great Manitoban and a great parliamentarian. His contributions are well known by Manitobans and by Canadians in terms of the contributions he made to our community and to our families.

He was a person of warmth, integrity, honesty, strength and vision. He always maintained the human touch with the people he represented and the people he came into contact with. He, of course, will be remembered in history books as a parliamentarian who used his skills on behalf of his constituents. Over the 40-some years that he represented his constituency, over some 12 elections where he was elected to Parliament, he used those tremendous and vast skills as a parliamentarian and as an orator to fight on behalf of his constituents for medicare and for the Canadian pension plan that we have in our country.

He had a number of victories even as he continued to improve the Canadian pension act in Canada. He was able to ensure that people that were in a strike or lock-out situation were not denied or cut off from their pension benefits as they struggled for working conditions and for health and safety conditions at their workplace.

He fought for a pension plan that would be universal and available to all Canadians as one of his great legacies on behalf of all of our citizens. Of course, he was instrumental for years in fighting for and articulating a need for medicare and universal health care. Of course, he came about these great, great strengths and fights for injustice and to deal with a more equitable society based on his family history.

His mother had a number of encounters with our health care system. He knew first-hand the tremendous challenges that families had without the means to access a health care system, a health care system that we had in this country at one time that was only available to those who had wealth and means as opposed to everyone that had health care needs.

His father was fired from a workplace. He knew first-hand what it meant to go without a pay cheque at home, to go first-hand without a livelihood, to have the indignity of being unemployed. He also knew first-hand what it meant to have a union and a representative organization on behalf of the workers at a workplace. He never ever forgot those strong messages from his childhood.

We know today that all of us that were, in fact, canvassing over the last couple of weeks in the federal election and were in contact with people in the various areas of the city that he represented in the Winnipeg centre constituency, Elmwood, the inner city, the north end--we know in going in contact door to door in this last federal election that people still remembered Stanley Knowles. They still cherished his great contributions. They still cherished the way he represented their values and their community. I think that is a lasting testament to his great personal strengths.

I know, on a personal level, I met Stanley Knowles on a number of occasions, and of course in our party and on occasions where he went outside of our political party he was treated by fellow Canadians as virtually a saint, and I guess he was as close a person to a saint that I will ever meet, certainly in terms of his contributions to our community. I also note that he was of sharp mind even after his heart attack in 1981, I believe.

I received letters from Stanley Knowles, advice from Stanley Knowles, suggestions from Stanley Knowles. He was very, very consistent in his writing and in his personal views that we can never ever forget who we represent, and for us and for people in our party, it was particularly important to him that we remembered we represented the working people, the people that did not have voice, the people that did not have power, that it was so important for us to balance that power through Parliament, through democracy and through our elected representatives.

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Stanley believed greatly in the kind of mixture and common philosophy of his religious beliefs in the social gospel and his teachings and his great beliefs in the labour movement, and he was instrumental in restructuring the CCF to the NDP with the labour movement as a partner. He rejected the American view of political movements and endorsed the European view--and of course his great belief of mixing all of this together in terms of the Parliament and democracy. You know, there was a person that valued and cherished and fought for the rights of all elected parliamentarians in Ottawa and believed strongly in each one of these Legislatures, that we each have a very important role to play in representing our constituents.

All of us have a lot of stories to tell about Stanley Knowles. I still remember the wonderful picture in Brandon University, I think it is in the student union building, of Stanley Knowles and Tommy Douglas on the shovels for the ground-breaking ceremony at Brandon University for the student council building. It is a wonderful, wonderful picture of these two people that preached and practised their political beliefs every day of their lives.

Madam Speaker, we will miss Stanley Knowles, we will not forget Stanley Knowles and we have been inspired by Stanley Knowles. Thank you.

Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Environment): Madam Speaker, might I have leave to make a nonpolitical statement?

Madam Speaker: Does the honourable Minister of Environment have leave to make a nonpolitical statement? [agreed]

Mr. McCrae: Madam Speaker, I too, as were all Canadians, was saddened to learn of the passing of the Honourable Stanley Knowles. I am pleased today to be able to offer my sympathy and condolences to the family of Mr. Knowles.

I, like the honourable Leader of the Opposition, knew Stanley Knowles, and during my time as an employee at the House of Commons came to know him as well as probably anyone here. This gentleman shared his friendship with people of all walks of life and shared his friendship with people of all political persuasions.

I heard what the honourable Leader of the Opposition said, and if you could personify the ideal of a parliamentarian, I have no doubt but that it would be the Honourable Stanley Knowles. I was privileged for a number of years to record in the House of Commons, and I do not think a day went by--I cannot remember any--when Mr. Knowles did not spend most of the day in the House where he felt he belonged and where he could provide the leadership to his party and to the people of Canada that he was so capable of providing.

I am honoured as a House leader to be able to speak today about Mr. Knowles, because during the time I was in the House of Commons as an employee, Mr. Knowles was House leader for his party and served that function with great distinction. I am sure House leaders who came and went from the other political parties would not hesitate, nor would they be turned away, to turn to Mr. Knowles for the kind of advice that only he could give.

I was always moved by the dogged consistency that I could see coming from Mr. Knowles. There was a real sense of a clarity of purpose in this Canadian. His purpose--and he made no mistake about that--he knew exactly who he represented and why he represented them, and he never wavered from the things that he believed in. How we achieved the things that we wanted to achieve were sometimes a matter of debate, but the Honourable Stanley Knowles--it would not matter if it was about western grain stabilization or about some of the great social issues or other of the day, the issue of pensions seemed to creep into every speech Mr. Knowles made in the House of Commons. I think he spoke in every single debate that there ever was during his time there, and that was certainly a very long time. I think, whether he was or was not at any given day the longest presently serving member, he was always known as the dean of parliamentarians and, after over 40 years as a member of the House--with a brief interruption in that service--few Canadians in history can claim, not only the longevity of his service but also the quality of his service. So, if he was not speaking about pensions, he was speaking about veterans' pensions, and if he was not speaking about pensions, he was speaking about pensions for the disabled, and if he was not speaking about pensions, he was speaking about making sure pensions for seniors were keeping up with the requirements of the day.

So I join with the honourable Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) and all others in paying tribute to a Canadian we can all be proud to have had some association with. Finally, as a Brandonite, Madam Speaker, I would like to pay tribute also to the fact that, as a person who studied at Brandon University and who went on to become the chancellor of our university in Brandon, the people of Brandon will always have a special place in their hearts for Stanley Knowles.

Mr. Leonard Evans (Brandon East): I wonder if I could have permission for a nonpolitical statement.

Madam Speaker: Does the honourable member for Brandon East have leave to make a nonpolitical statement? [agreed]

Mr. Leonard Evans: Madam Speaker, I would like to join with the Leader of the official opposition and with the government House leader to pay tribute to a fine Canadian, a fine parliamentarian and a true social democrat.

I knew Stanley Knowles as a young man, a very young man. In fact, my mother, I believe, took me to a meeting when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and there was Stanley Knowles when he was first elected as a member of Parliament for Winnipeg North Centre. Indeed, as others have described, he was a great parliamentarian, a fighter for social justice without question. Pensions, I think, were his specialty--old age pensions, veterans pensions--and he was really practising in a very sincere way his Christianity, his social gospel, if you will.

I believe it was John Diefenbaker who was going to make him the first independent Speaker of the House--

An Honourable Member: '57.

Mr. Leonard Evans: '57. Stanley Knowles was such a parliamentarian, such a--he had greater knowledge of the rules of the House of Commons than everybody else put together it seemed, and Mr. Diefenbaker, the then Prime Minister, had actually offered Stanley Knowles the job of being the first independent Speaker of the House of Commons. For various reasons, Stanley turned it down. I think he wanted to carry on his fight for pensions and so on.

Then, of course, Prime Minister Trudeau recognized his contribution in the House by offering him a permanent seat or table alongside the clerical staff in the House of Commons, and Stanley took him up on it. If you watched the House of Commons on the television from time to time, you would see Stanley Knowles sitting there. Particularly when something very important was happening, some big event, Stanley was certainly there. In fact, Stanley told me one time he did not think he could survive if he could not go to the House of Commons. He was so dedicated to Parliament, and he had been so absorbed in the House all those years that he said, Len, I do not think I could survive if I could not be at the House of Commons and participate in one way or the other.

As the government House leader has said, I wanted to mention, as well, Stanley's connection with Brandon University. Stanley was a graduate of Brandon University, and later in the '70s and the '80s he was a chancellor for many, many years. I wanted to comment that in those days when you graduated, you would kneel on a stool before the chancellor and Stanley would put his hand on your shoulder and give you a little talk. You know, there were hundreds of people waiting to graduate, but Stanley talked to each and every one of them. Needless to say, we had very long graduating ceremonies, but he had words of wisdom to everybody.

Unfortunately, later he did have this massive stroke, and he did lose his memory, but it came back. He had to work on it. The government House leader may remember--Stanley would be telling us at Brandon University graduations and telling people how he had to work on remembering things, and indeed it came back. In fact, afterwards I heard Stanley Knowles give many a speech after this massive stroke, after a few months, without a single note, to the Brandon University graduating ceremony--without a note and a speech with some content and a message. So this was Stanley Knowles, a great mind.

Of course the students recognized his contribution as well as Tommy Douglas by naming the student centre the Knowles/Douglas Student Union Centre. I was at that--this really dates me--sod turning with the Leader of the Opposition, Stanley Knowles and Tommy Douglas, and it was truly a great day.

He was a fine man, a great Canadian. He indeed has made his contribution to making our society a better place to live in, certainly one who lived and breathed the social gospel. Thank you.

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Mr. Gerry McAlpine (Sturgeon Creek): Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable member for St. Vital (Mrs. Render), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Public Utilities and Natural Resources be amended as follows: the member for Arthur-Virden (Mr. Downey) for the member for Brandon West (Mr. McCrae); the honourable member for Minnedosa (Mr. Gilleshammer) for the honourable member for Morris (Mr. Pitura).

For the Standing Committee on Law Amendments, I move, seconded by the honourable member for St. Vital (Mrs. Render), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Law Amendments be amended as follows: the honourable member for Brandon West (Mr. McCrae) for the honourable member for Kirkfield Park (Mr. Stefanson); the honourable member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe) for the honourable member for Fort Garry (Mrs. Vodrey); the honourable member for Gimli (Mr. Helwer) for the honourable member for Charleswood (Mr. Ernst).

Motions agreed to.

Mr. George Hickes (Point Douglas): I move, seconded by the member for Broadway (Mr. Santos), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Law Amendments be amended as follows: Elmwood (Mr. Maloway) for Wellington (Ms. Barrett); Thompson (Mr. Ashton) for St. Johns (Mr. Mackintosh); Flin Flon (Mr. Jennissen) for Burrows (Mr. Martindale) for June 10, 1997, 10 a.m.

I move, seconded by the member for Broadway (Mr. Santos), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Public Utilities and Natural Resources be amended as follows: Transcona (Mr. Reid) for Thompson (Mr. Ashton); Selkirk (Mr. Dewar) for The Pas (Mr. Lathlin); Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) for St. Johns (Mr. Mackintosh) for Tuesday, June 10, 1997, for 10 a.m.

Motions agreed to.

Mr. Conrad Santos (Broadway): Madam Speaker, I seek leave to make a two-pronged political statement.

Madam Speaker: Does the honourable member for Broadway have leave to revert back to Nonpolitical Statements to make a nonpolitical statement? [agreed]

Mr. Santos: First of all, I would like to join my colleague in paying personal tribute to Stanley Knowles. I remember an incident in a dinner. I came to him and I asked him this question. I said, Stanley, I now get involved in political life. I do not want to be corrupted. How did you do it? He said to me, Conrad, the matter is entirely in your hands, and I remember that in my life.

This Wednesday, there will be the Manitoba Association of Filipino Teachers who will make a cultural presentation at the Wellington School at 690 Beverley Street within the Broadway constituency. On Thursday, June 12, starting at 12 p.m., there will be some cultural shows and pictorial exhibits at the Garden City Shopping Centre hosted by the Association of Filipino Students of the University of Manitoba, the International Development Committee of the YM-YWCA and the Canadian Hunger Association.

On Friday, June 13, starting at 7 p.m., at the Prairie Theatre Exchange, 3rd Floor, 340 Portage Avenue, Portage Place, there will be an oratorical contest on the national hero Dr. Rizal's My Last Farewell hosted by the Ladies of the Knights of Rizal, followed by a concert of Filipino musicians at 767 Tache Avenue, Le Rendez-vous.

On Saturday, June 14, the Manitoba Association of the Order of the Knights of Rizal, the Manitoba Association of Filipino Teachers and the Coalition of Filipino-Canadians on Violence Prevention will co-host a conference on Journeying Together Towards Racial Harmony, followed by the Philippines Independence Commemoration Ball at the second floor of the Winnipeg Convention Centre at 6 p.m.

The Philippine Heritage Week will conclude with an all-community picnic on Sunday, June 15, in Assiniboine Park, Roblin Boulevard, co-hosted by Timpuyog, Radyo 27 and the Pangasinan Group, starting at 9 a.m., followed by Procession Santacrusan and game Pabitin, hosted by the Quezon Province Association of Manitoba and the Health Awareness Day.

On behalf of the Manitoba New Democratic Party caucus in the Manitoba Legislative Assembly, we wish the entire Filipino-Canadian community all the best in their week-long celebration of the Philippine Heritage Week. Thank you.