Canada joins U.S. in giving Michael J. Fox its highest civilian decoration - National Post
Actor Michael J. Fox poses for a photo with Governor General Louise Arbour after receiving Companion of the Order of Canada, the highest tier of the order, during the Order of Canada Investiture ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Friday, Oct. 2, 2026. Photo by HYUNGCHEOL PARK /PostmediaArticle contentWithin the span of just two years, actor Michael J Fox has won the highest civilian honour of both the United States and his home country of Canada.
It’s a feat that’s been managed only three times before, and only twice before by a Canadian.
In a Rideau Hall ceremony on Friday, Fox was invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada, the highest tier of Canada’s top civilian award.
The ceremony came just 21 months after a similar investiture at the White House, where Fox was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ own top non-military decoration.
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Born in Edmonton in 1961, Fox is best known for his 1980s acting career, including starring roles in Family Ties and the Back to the Future trilogy.
But what was primarily cited in both Fox’s White House and Rideau Hall investitures was his more than three decades of advocacy for research into Parkinson’s, a degenerative illness for which Fox is one of the world’s most well-known patients.
“Michael J. Fox is in a remarkable chapter of his life, blending selective acting with powerful global advocacy and unflinching honesty about Parkinson’s,” reads a bio of Fox published by Rideau Hall.
When awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. President Joe Biden in January 2025, a White House statement similarly cited Fox for “channeling his endearing personality to advance treatments that move us closer to a cure and remind us of the power of American possibilities.”
Fox first started noticing symptoms of Parkinson’s in 1990, when he was just 29. The Michael J. Fox Parkinson’s Foundation, founded by the actor in 2000, has now raised an estimated US$3 billion for Parkinson’s research.
Fox becomes just the third Canadian to win the top non-military decorations of both his home country and that of the United States.
