Figure 1: Real GDP per American and Canadian aged 15-64, converted to 2013 price level with updated 2005 EKS purchasing power parities, 1955-2013
Source: Computed from OECD Stat Extract and The Conference Board, Total Database, January 2014, http://www.conference-board.org/economics
Figure 2: Real GDP per American and Canadian aged 15-64, converted to 2013 price level with updated 2005 EKS purchasing power parities, 1.9 per cent detrended, 1955-2013
Source: Computed from OECD Stat Extract and The Conference Board, Total Database, January 2014, http://www.conference-board.org/economics
A rising line in figure 2 is above trend rate growth; a flat line is trend growth of 1.9%; and a falling line is below trend growth.
Canada has a volatile ride in the post-war period after economic success up until 1975. Despite ups and downs the Canadian economy has been in a long-term decline since 1975. Growth as rarely being at trend and was often below, sometimes sharply below trend.
None of these depressed periods in the Canadian economy were long enough to count as a great depression. Instead there was just a long-term decline.
Canada is next door to the USA and a member of the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) and its antecedents so its cannot blame distance nor small size for its decline in economic performance as some do in New Zealand.
Relative to the USA, Rao et al. (2006) and Sharp (2003) attributed the gap between the USA and Canada to less capital per Canadian worker, an innovation gap as shown by lower R&D expenditure in Canada, a smaller and less dynamic high technology sector in Canada, less developed human capital at the top end of the Canadian labour market, and more limited scale and scope economies in Canada.
These factors have been put forward, at one time or another, as the proximate causes of the New Zealand productivity gap with the USA. Identifying the barriers to higher Canadian productivity may offer fresh insights into removing similar productivity barriers in New Zealand.
Figure 3 suggests that the increase in tax revenues as a percentage of GDP from 30% to 35% at the same time as the Canadian economic boom came to an end and its economic decline began is worthy of further scrutiny. The strong economic recovery from 1995 onwards also coincided with the decline tax revenues as a percentage of GDP.
Figure 3: tax revenue as a percentage of GDP
Source: OECD StatExtract
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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