On July 6, 1967, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada. He was invested into the order on November 24, 1967, for "his contribution as a Parliamentarian." It is noteworthy that his Order of Canada medal was sold at auction in 1981, the first time the Order of Canada is known to have been sold. It ended up in auction due to his will not specifying what to do with his various medals, so his son sold them to a private collector, who then put them up for auction. That same year, the Douglas-Coldwell Foundation purchased the medals back for about $10,000 so that they could be displayed in the Tommy Douglas House museum in Regina.