What does the Canadian Wheat Board do?

For a while I have noticed that wheat prices in Canada seem to be much higher than they are in other places that I have purchase wheat (the US and the UK). Consequently, it seems that bread and other wheat products are also more expensive. This always strikes me as odd as we frequently hear that Canada is a great wheat-producing nation.

In some cases we seem to be told that that is all they do on prairies. They seem to have tons of it, year after year, it just keeps coming.

If this high level of production is in fact true, and not just an urban myth, then why does flour cost more here than in the low wheat production UK?

If we look back to the 1800s we see that the UK protected its own farmers with the Corn Acts, which fundamentally prohibited the import of grain, driving up prices. This worked for landowners because there was a scarcity of ability to grow grain, a scarcity that is even more noticeable today. These conditions agricultural conditions are not quite what we are dealing with in Canada, though the financial results seem to be similar.

Based on my elementary knowledge of economics I would have thought that even if we limited imports, because of our domestic production, prices would be moderate at worst (for the consumer). It seems that this is not in any way the case. We get hosed on wheat prices day after day, year after year.

I don’t know too much about the Canadian Wheat Board, but I suspect that this pseudo-monopolistic buyer must be causing some of this price distortion (though I can’t pin-point its effect). What I find odd is that I always thought that this type of enterprise was supposed to act on the world market and get better prices for the farmers. The system seems to have broken down in this case because it seems that it is mainly in domestic markets that better prices are being attained.

Maybe someone can shed some light on this and provide me with answers to the following questions.

-Do we limit the import of wheat and other grains?

-What is the world price for wheat and what is the price paid in Canada?

-If these conditions are the case, what is the total value of the implicit subsidy (artificially increased prices) that is received by effected wheat farmers combined with the on the books subsidies?

-Is the Canadian Wheat Board able to negotiate prices with major buyers?