Julio Montaner Jack Austin, Joanne Sullivan Douglas, Olav Slaymaker, Barry Downs enter Order of Canada

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      Five Vancouver residents have joined the illustrious club known as the Order of Canada.

      HIV/AIDS researcher Dr. Julio Montaner, former senator Jack Austin, DA Architects + Planners founder Barry Downs, long-time B.C. Women's Hospital and Health Centre anesthesia expert Joanne M. Sullivan Douglas, and UBC geography professor emeritus Olav Slaymaker were appointed to Order on Boxing Day.

      Montaner, director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, was named an officer of the Order of Canada, which is the second-highest level.

      The other four Vancouverites were named members of the Order.

      The top level is companion of the Order of Canada, which went to three people this year: Montreal lawyer and International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound, Toronto businessman-academic-arts philanthropist James Fleck, and University of Ottawa law professor Donald McRae.

      The Order of Canada was created in 1967 to honour outstanding achievement and there are more than 6,000 people named so far.

      Six people over the years who were inducted into the Order were subsequently stripped of this honour: Alan Eagleson, David Ahenakew, T. Sher Singh, Steve Fonyo, Garth Drabinsky, and Conrad Black.

      Eagleson was jailed for fraud; Ahenakew was convicted of promoting hatred against Jews; Singh lost his legal licence for professional misconduct; Fonyo had a string of convictions; Drabinsky was convicted of fraud and forgery; and Black was convicted of mail fraud and obstruction of justice.

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