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
^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.
^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.