by BETTER FARMING STAFF
The Canadian Dairy Commission’s chairman will return for a two-year term.
Yesterday, federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz announced he had re-appointed Randy Williamson to the Commission’s top spot.
The federal news release announcing the re-appointment describes Williamson as a former business executive who began his career in 1974 with the Fraser Valley Milk Producers and subsequently took on key roles at two dairy processors in British Columbia and then at Saputo in Montreal before retiring in 2006. He was first appointed as Commission chairman in 2007.
Williamson’s re-appointment follows last year’s appointment of New Brunswick farmer Jacques Laforge as the Commission’s chief executive officer for a three-year term. Laforge is the former chair of Dairy Farmers of Canada and a strong supporter of supply management.
The two executive positions are also dedicated seats on the Commission’s three-member board. Commission member Gilles Martin holds the third seat. His three-year term ends in July, says Chantal Paul, a spokesperson for the Commission.
According to the Auditor General of Canada’s 2011 special examination report, the Commission is a federal crown corporation that coordinates federal and provincial “policies and roles in managing the dairy industry in Canada. Acting as both a facilitator and stakeholder in various forums that influence Canadian dairy policy, the Commission supports the interests of all dairy stakeholders — producers, processors, exporters, consumers and governments.”
There are 61 employees.
The Canadian Dairy Information Centre website says that in 2011 Canada’s dairy industry generated $5.8 billion in net farm receipts and $13.7 billion in sales — a volume that represented a more than 16 per cent share of the country’s food and beverage sector.
More than 80 per cent of Canada’s dairy farms are located in Ontario and Quebec. BF
Comments
Multiple sources indicate that the volume of dairy consumed is almost the same as in 1960, yet the population of Canada has doubled. In addition, the auditor general claims that the CDC "supports the interest of all dairy stakeholders including consumers". So how many of those 61 employees are representatives speaking on behalf of "consumers"? It's like this everyone, governments need to be very, very small and markets need to be very, very big. Business' including farming need to be allowed to succeed, and to fail. Raube Beuerman, Dublin, ON
Let me see if I've got this correct - 61 undoubtably well-paid Canadian Dairy Commission (CDC) employees look after effectively nobody's interests except for about 13,000 dairy farmers out of well-over a 30 million national population. In addition, since supply management is, by the first principles of economics, net-negative for economic activity, the Canadian dairy industry's $5.8 billion in farm-gate receipts and $13.7 billion in sales, are both, by definition, LESS than what would be achieved by not having supply management, if for no other reason than cross-border shoppers would start to once-again buy dairy and poultry products in Canada. I mean, really, why pick on Senators Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin for having their hands in the cookie-jar, when the CDC, and the industry it supports, invented the cookie-jar? In addition, it boggles the mind to imagine how the CDC could "support the interests" of exporters when, by definition, and by virtue of obscenely-high farm gate prices, there are not, and cannot be, exports in the first place. It's equally-obscene to imagine how the CDC could ever possibly "support the interests" of consumers, especially the ever-increasing number of consumers who simply don't need "looking after", because they've long-since fled to the US for their dairy product purchases. If anything, the CDC thwarts the interests of both exporters and consumers, and goes a long way towards thwarting the interests of processors by driving away consumers because of ridiculously high prices. What's far-worse, of course, is that dairy farmers, and, apparently, those appointed to gorge themselves at the CDC trough, actually believe this complete, and utter, nonsense. AAARRGGGHHHH!!!!
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
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