Members of the King's Privy Council for Canada use the title The Honourable if they are ordinary members. Prime Ministers, Governors General and Chief Justices automatically are given the title The Right Honourable. While Governors General have the right to the title Right Honourable upon being sworn into office they are not inducted into the Privy Council until the end of their term unless they were previously members of the council by virtue of another office. Other eminent individuals such as prominent former Cabinet ministers are sometimes also given the title Right Honourable. Leaders of opposition parties and provincialpremiers are not automatically inducted into the Privy Council. Opposition leaders are brought in from time to time either to commemorate a special event such as the Canadian Centennial in 1967, the patriation of the Constitution or, in order to allow them to be advised on sensitive issues of national security under the Security of Information Act. Paul Martin inaugurated a practice of inducting parliamentary secretaries into the Privy Council but this has not been continued by his successors.
Current members of the King's Privy Council for Canada (year sworn in)[edit]
Members of Parliament appointed by nature of being parliamentary secretaries (appointed 2003–2005, only period where all parliamentary secretaries were sworn into Privy Council)[edit]
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act established the Security Intelligence Review Committee, and required members to be named from members of the King's Privy Council who were not members of the Senate or House of Commons at the time of their appointment. As such, appointees, if not already members of the Privy Council, were sworn in prior to being named to the committee. In 2019, the SIRC was replaced by the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency.
While traditionally appointment to the Order of Canada has been utilised to recognize prominent Canadians, Brian Mulroney appointed 18 Canadians to the Privy Council on Canada Day in 1992 in commemoration of Canada's 125th anniversary, and two more (W.O. Mitchell and Maurice Richard) later that year. Conrad Black, who was one of the 18 appointed, was expelled from the Privy Council in 2014 on the recommendation of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.[15]
