Concerns that the Canadian Dairy Commission could be caught short at its board table have been resolved with a new appointment to a vacant commissioner’s chair.
Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau on Sept. 27 announced Shikha Jain will be the CDC’s commissioner for a four-year term effective Sept. 15.
Jain, who lives at Guelph, is the CEO for GET Corp., a green tech firm focused on conversion on dairy farms’ organic wastes to renewable natural gas.
A former chief administrative officer for Dairy Farmers of Ontario and CEO for Career Colleges Ontario, Jain “brings extensive experience in strategic and operational planning and is recognized as a trusted and collaborative leader,” the federal government said in a release.
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“There is no doubt that Shikha Jain’s extensive experience in strategic planning and sustainability in the dairy industry will be assets for the Canadian Dairy Commission,” Bibeau said in the same release.
“Her guidance will be valuable as the CDC is moving forward with the government’s agenda to advance innovation and (greenhouse gas) emissions reduction.”
The commission is tasked with co-ordinating federal and provincial dairy policies; it administers support prices for butter and skin milk powder and the national marketing quota.
Jain’s appointment fills the vacancy on the CDC’s three-member board of directors, after the appointment of Benoit Basillais as the commission’s new CEO this summer and former commissioner Jennifer Hayes as CDC chair late last year.
CDC governance was flagged in a special report from the federal auditor general’s office in March last year, calling on the commission’s board to keep in touch with the ag minister’s office on a “timely basis” to make sure its board table is fully occupied.
That report found no board meetings had to be cancelled or any decisions left unresolved, but nevertheless, having an empty chair at a three-member board table “poses a significant risk that the board would be unable to make decisions and operate effectively,” the auditor general’s office said at the time.
That poses a risk particularly for the CDC. Its requirement for members to have “significant dairy industry experience” — with one member also serving as CEO — makes it somewhat more likely that a “real, potential or perceived” conflict of interest could pop up, requiring at least one member to abstain from voting on certain decisions. — Glacier FarmMedia Network
