As Overbyen has said...

I can't speak to Canada's university system but I believe that it's very similar to the US system.

In general, Univeristy in the US is broken down in the following ways:

Bachelors Degree - This is the first 4 years of university, generally the first two years are spent on general education with a focus on your general field of study and the last two years are focused primarily on your field of study. I think most first degrees in europe are more like the Masters Degree in the US.

Masters Degree - This takes 1 - 2 years and is focused purely on your area of study at an advanced level, often with a research focus

PhD - I think the doctoral degree is fairly universal so it should be the same everywhere.

To address your concern, yes the general studies classes can be a waste of time. My Art/History class titled "Paris" that I took during my first quarter at University certainly didn't help me with my career as a structural engineer in the same way that the Calculus, Differential Equations, Physics, etc did. With that said, the Bachelors degree in the US is supposed to be a well rounded degree that gives the student a broad exposure to many different ideas and thoughts. It might be the case that the generalized exposure to various areas of studies are well covered in you primary education. The US primary school system is probably less rigorous than most European school systems. 

Overall, I think Universities in the US are quite different from European Universities. In the US they tend to be large wealthy institutions with large campuses and operate in a world of their own. The largest Universities have endowments valued in the billions of dollars. I think that's quite rare in Europe with places like Cambridge and Oxford being exception. I could be mistaken about that though.