Five honorary appointments to the
Order of Canada are permitted per year by the order's constitution. The following is a list of all honorary appointments to date. Names rendered in italics were later made Canadian citizens; these memberships thereby became regarded no longer as honorary but instead as substantive.
^Nelson Mandela was granted
Honorary Canadian Citizenship in 2001. However, this is ceremonial and does not make his appointment substantive
^The Queen Mother, as a member of the
Canadian Royal Family, was a Canadian subject but not a Canadian citizen.
^Gehry, though born in
Toronto, moved with his family to the United States in 1942, before the enactment of the Canadian Citizenship Act, 1946. However, Gehry was granted Canadian citizenship in 2002,[3] and is now no longer listed as an honorary Companion of the order.
^The Aga Khan was granted
Honorary Canadian Citizenship in 2011. However, this is ceremonial and does not make his appointment substantive
^Zena Sheardown was the wife of John Sheardown, a Canadian employed at the Canadian Embassy in
Iran during the
Iranian Revolution of 1979. At great risk to her personal safety, Zena Sheardown was instrumental in the success of the
Canadian Caper, allowing six American diplomats to be safely removed from the country. Sheardown was the first honorary appointment to the Order of Canada; the uniqueness of this appointment made it slow, to the point that
Flora MacDonald had to ask for and receive unanimous consent from the
House of Commons of Canada before the appointment was seriously considered. By the time she was invested into the order in 1986, Sheardown had become a Canadian citizen and the Advisory Council changed the status of her induction from honorary to substantive.
^Born in
Rockford, Washington in 1931, Dr. Alfred Eugene Slinkard moved to Canada in 1972 to joined the University of Saskatchewan's Crop Development Centre with a goal of diversifying Western Canada's agriculture sector away from wheat. In this role Dr. Slinkard developed the Laird and Eston variety of Lentils in the 1970s and 80s. Laird grew to become one of the most recognized lentils in the world and made Canada one of the largest suppliers of Lentils and other pulse crops to the world market.
^"Nelson Mandela, C.C."Search Order of Canada Membership List. Office of the Governor General of Canada. Archived from
the original on 2008-12-20. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
^"Václav Havel, C.C."Search Order of Canada Membership List. Office of the Governor General of Canada. Archived from
the original on 2005-12-10. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
^"Aga Khan, C.C."Search Order of Canada Membership List. Office of the Governor General of Canada. Archived from
the original on 2007-10-22. Retrieved 2009-07-25.