Thinking on it and while I agree with most people here with their assessments, I would argue that Canada was a nation that almost wasn't.
In 1900, Canada had a population of just 5,310,000 and was largely rural based and heavily dependent on agriculture, lumber, fishing and even trapping. Thankfully for us, two world wars and relative geographic isolation along with American influence has enabled us to grow, change ourselves and now sit as a member of the G8/G20.
Trade my fellow Canadian is what made us one of the richest countries in the world, the proportion of trade to domestic production in Canada is unusually high for a first-world nation. Also a great amount of foriegn investment has gone into Canada for the stable non-corrupt government, good educated populace, good infrastructure and abundant resources.
After all the first Europeans only came for fish and returned to Europe after the fishing season, the first real settlers were of military or trade-company origin. People simplly didn't want to stay in -40 degrees winters when the warmer thirteen colonies were also available.
Then came the beaver fad and people started trading with native for furs, but they left most of the work to natives and didn't really settle down. Only later did a small amount of people start moving inland in search of more furs. But when that fad died out the most people didn't have the means or will to go back to Britain

.
Then came Napoleon, and thanks to him the British made Canada their main source of timber for the royal navy.
Then the Americans decided that they could have both low taxes and government benefits, and when the British taxed them in accordance to the services they received they threw them out. Fortunately this gave Canada some 50,000 people with strong pro-government sentiments and administrative skills.
And thanks to the good amount of prudent and cautious founding Scots in Canada's early banking institutions the tradition has carried through and now Canadian banks are among the most stable in the world (no spectacular results but no hard falls either).
Unlike the states Canadians are more open to government intervention and tax, something crucial for efficient governments and managing government debt. Plus Canadians are more mellow than Americans and people in general, when America's game it goes big, when America falls it falls hard, Canadians are just like "there's a recession going on. Oh, ok... " so extremes are rare in Canada. Your more likely to scare Canadians with debt than taxes or terrorism. (1990's)
Canada welcomes foreign students to stay , raise families/bring the family over ,and pay taxes to the government. Whereas America and some European countries either send them back with their education or restricted entry in the first place.
Canada also encourages a lot of immigration, bring in money, skilled workers, and most importantly of all a diverse culture with many ideas which is quite an asset in the innovative service sector.
And unlike most countries Canada *cough**cough* didn't need a strong armed force, that's an additional 3% of income that until recently has been put into growth. I personally blame an emotionless American robot sent from the future to destroy Canada. *cough*Harper*cough*
So no, with the culture, institution, stability, and resources present at the start Canada was actually quite well placed and it would be ABS for it to fail to become a first world nation.