The Order of Canada is marking 50 years with some quintessential Canadian additions.
This Canada Day, the list of appointees will grow by 99, including the Prince of Wales, soccer star Christine Sinclair, hockey legend Mark Messier, actor Mike Myers, actress Catherine O'Hara, musician Alan Doyle, and ``Jeopardy'' host Alex Trebek.
They will be added to about seven-thousand people who have their names on the rolls of the decades-old honours program.
While the Order of Canada turns 50 this year, it could have easily been turning 150 if not for decades of political unease about creating a distinctly Canadian honours system, worried it would be seen as another symbol of political patronage.
A royal commission headed by former Governor General Vincent Massey, which provided the foundation for modern arts and culture funding, recommended creating a Canadian honours system like the Order of Canada.
Louis St-Laurent, the prime minister at the time, was adamantly opposed.
In the lead-up to Canada's centennial in 1967, Lester Pearson's government decided to move on the idea and quickly cobbled together everything needed to create the Order of Canada, including an insignia.
The list released this morning by Rideau Hall bears some similarities to the one from 50 years ago.
Street nurse Catherine Crowe, Me to We founder Roxanne Joyal and Catherine Latimer, executive director of the John Howard Society of Canada, are being honoured, much as social advocates were in the first list released in 1967.
And in place of David Bauer _ instrumental in Canada's national hockey program _ and Montreal Canadiens great Maurice Richard, there is Messier, the ex-Edmonton Oiler forward with the quintessentially Canadian nickname, ``Moose.''