Honorary appointments to the Order of Canada

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.

#	Name	Citizenship	Appointment	Investiture	Death/removal	Occupation/field of endeavour
Companions
5.	Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela	[n 1]	3 September 1998	24 September 1998	5 December 2013	Former President of South Africa.[1]
6.	Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother	[n 2]	1 August 2000	31 October 2000	30 March 2002	Former Royal Consort of Canada.[2]
9.	Frank Gehry	[n 3]	12 November 2002	16 June 2003		Architect.[4]
10.	Boutros Boutros-Ghali		8 May 2003	7 May 2004	16 February 2016	Former Secretary-General of the United Nations.[5]
11.	Václav Havel		8 May 2003	3 March 2004	18 December 2011	Former President of the Czech Republic.[6]
12.	Aga Khan IV	[n 4]	29 October 2004	6 June 2005	4 February 2025 [7]	Imam of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims.[8]
Officers
2.	John Kenneth Galbraith	[n 5]	17 April 1997	5 November 1997	29 April 2006	Economist.[9]
3.	James Hillier	[n 6]	17 April 1997	5 November 1997	15 January 2007	Inventor of the electron microscope.[10]
4.	Charles Dutoit		23 October 1997	30 January 2002		Conductor of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.[11]
8.	Tanya Moiseiwitsch		10 October 2002	16 May 2003	19 February 2003	Theatre designer for the Stratford Festival.[12]
15.	Charles Aznavour	[n 7]	10 April 2008	5 July 2008	1 October 2018	Musician and actor.[14]
16.	Bernard Pivot		10 April 2008	7 May 2008	6 May 2024 [15]	Television host and culture promoter.[16]
18.	Sima Samar		25 May 2009	17 November 2010		Human rights leader.[17]
19.	Ronnie Hawkins		29 June 2013	7 May 2014	29 May 2022	Rock Musician[18]
20.	Bramwell Tovey		29 June 2013	21 November 2014	12 July 2022	Conductor and composer[18]
22.	Michael Schade		30 Dec 2016	25 August 2017		Opera singer [19]
25.	Marie Ann Battiste		27 June 2019	6 May 2022		Indigenous rights activist and language educator [20]
28.	Richard Wayne Hill Sr.		28 December 2023			Indigenous arts activist [21]
29.	Kent Nagano		27 June 2024			Opera conductor and administrator [22]
30.	Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga	[n 8]	27 June 2024			Former President of Latvia[23]
Members
1.	Zena Sheardown	[n 9]	11 October 1981	29 December 1986		Instrumental participant during the Canadian Caper.[24]
7.	Lois Lilienstein		1 May 2002	24 October 2003	22 April 2015	Member of Sharon, Lois & Bram.[25]
13.	Francis Cabot		29 June 2005	9 September 2005	19 November 2011	Horticulturist.[26]
14.	Salome Bey		17 November 2005	26 October 2006	9 August 2020[27]	Musician.[28]
17.	Zachary Richard		25 May 2009	7 April 2010		Singer, songwriter, and poet.[29]
21.	Johann Olav Koss		1 July 2015	13 May 2016		Olympic speedskater and founder of Right to Play.[30]
23.	Kathy Reichs		27 Dec 2018	18 Nov 2019		Forensic Anthropologist and crime fiction writer .[31]
24.	Richard J. Schmeelk [fr]		27 Dec 2018	4 Sep 2019	19 May 2022 [32]	Banker and Philanthropist, Founder of the Richard J. Schmeelk Canada Fellowship .[31]
26.	Alfred E. Slinkard	[n 10]	27 Nov 2020	13 April 2022	24 Nov 2022 [33]	Plant scientist and agronomic breeder.[34]
27.	Jackie Richardson	[n 11]	29 Dec 2021			Jazz singer and actress.[35]

Notes

1. Nelson Mandela was granted Honorary Canadian Citizenship in 2001. However, this is ceremonial and does not make his appointment substantive.
2. The Queen Mother, as a member of the Canadian Royal Family, was a Canadian subject but not a Canadian citizen.
3. 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.
4. The Aga Khan was granted Honorary Canadian Citizenship in 2011. However, this is ceremonial and does not make his appointment substantive
5. Galbraith was born in Ontario before the establishment of Canadian citizenship and renounced his status as a British subject in 1937 to become a United States citizen.
6. Hillier was born in Ontario before the establishment of Canadian citizenship and renounced his status as a British subject in 1945 to become a United States citizen.
7. In December 2008 Aznavour was granted Armenian Citizenship by Presidential decree^[13]
8. Vaira Vike-Freiberga was born in Latvia in 1937 and emigrated to Canada as a refugee in 1954 where she later became a naturalized Canadian Citizen. The Constitution of Latvia prohibits the President from holding dual citizenship and Vike-Freiberga consequently renounced her Canadian citizenship upon her election in 1999.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. Born in Donora, Pennsylvania in 1947, Richardson moved to Canada in 1954.