It's a strange thing that the US (under the 1789 Constitution, of course) was designed to have a relativity weak central government (but still strong enough to be effective), while Canada (under the then-British North America Act) was designed to have a strong central government. (This can be seen in how all the powers not explicitly delineated are assigned--in the US, to the states or the people, in Canada, to the federal government.)
History and court decisions have reversed the situation. The Commerce Clause, in particular, has resulted in the US federal government having a lot more power than the Framers probably ever envisioned*, while the Canadian provinces' authority over such things as health, education and natural resources has resulted in them having more power than the Fathers of Confederation probably ever envisioned.
*I haven't actually read the Federalist Papers or anything like that so that's just a guess on my part.
My views on this stuff don't really have to do with centralized vs decentralized government, though, but rather with Westminster parliamentary democracy vs US Presidential-Congressional democracy (not to mention all the various forms in between), and with various sorts of electoral systems, which are another topics entirely.