Well, being Canadian I know that I don’t have an accent. 
But I have seen an interview with a dialect coach for films. One of the things this particular coach specialized in was teaching Canadian actors to speak with American accents (from different regions of the USA). I know these are generalizations and I don’t remember all of what he said, but there were a couple of things that stuck out:
Canadians tend to use their lips more to pronounce vowels. Hence pushing their lips out to make “o” sounds or “ow” sounds in about (though not near as pronounced as is generally the stereotype). Americans are generally more sloppy (his wording, not mine) with their pronunciation and they don’t use their lips as much to fully pronounce vowels.
Like I said, this is a generalizing, but that’s how he helps Canadian actors to sound more “American.”
I used to think that Canadians didn’t have an accent either, until I lived for a couple of years on Long Island. After a few months removed from hearing “Canajian” on a daily basis, it was an amazing revelation to come home (Southern Ontario) and hear exactly how different from the US we sound - and no, I’m not just talking about sounding distinct from Long Islanders, but from a mid-Western US accent as well.
Although it is an exageration to say we pronounce “out” as
“oot” and “about” as “aboot”, we do tend to say these words differently from Americans. Another difference is the word “sorry” - Americans tend to have more of an “aw” sound (“sawrry”).
As proof of my accent, Americans have never had difficulty guessing that I’m at least not American, and usually can determine I’m Canadian just on hearing me speak. If there were no such thing as a Canadian accent, then this wouldn’t be possible.
Of course, in populations as diverse as both the US and Canada, numerous counterexamples will exist, but regional accents are a linguistic fact, and there’s no point in trying to deny that Canadians have one.
D18
but I suspect the one you are after is the stereotypical ‘Bob and Doug’ hoser accent, eh? The movie Fargo had accents that were close (I thought) to this type but more pronounced.
I met a person from Timmins (Northern Ontario, about 4 hours from Toronto) who had said accent (we found it very heavy). I suspect that there is an influence of the French language in how pronounciations are made.
I grew up about an 80 miles from Toronto and moved to there when I was 25. We had the same accents when I was growing up as those in Toronto. After a couple of years away from my friends, I went back to visit and discovered a very discernable accent that they MUST have picked up in the time that I was away;).
Please note that this is very localized and that Atlantic residents like Newfies (Scot/Irish mix) each have their own dialects, as do westerners. I’ve noticed subtle differences from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. I haven’t had a whole lot of contact with British Columbians (but I suspect their accent is very similar to Chinese and Japanese) ;). I don’t feel qualified to speak of the different Quebec accents, suffice to say that French people (from France) shudder to hear Quebecois.
This is a stupid question on just so many levels. Especially in a text medium.
This thread is closed.