Depends where in Canada you are. It's sort of a hybrid of British colonial education with the American system (gap year is very rare in Canada from what I understand), although a lot of the terminology mimics what is used in Britain.
In Quebec things are completely different. Similar to the French system which, from what I understand, consists of taking month long vacations every other week and protesting random inconsequential laws (kidding). They have something called CEGEP over there, which seems like the vocational high schools prevalent in France. They're done with "high school" when they're 16 and then head of to "College" for further training. I have cousins my age in Quebec and I have no idea what the hell they're doing.