Well, I guess the worst situation would be if they didn't have a quorum, meaning they could not make official decisions. In the case of IDRC, the legislation says there needs to be a majority of Canadian members. So with 21 people, depending on who's there or not there, there's probably a way to manage the attendance at the board so that you have a majority of Canadians. But it doesn't make the situation easy in specific cases.
On June 16th, 2009. See this statement in context.