Originally Posted by
jplus
To me people in B.C. speak in a way that is "flatter", or somewhat close to standard North American English (the midwest dialect, e.g. CNN), ya?
I'd actually go the other way around. CNN speaks like BCers (or at least Pacific Northwestners)
One interesting website is the following
www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/Canadian/canphon1.html
Provides a rundown of a number of pronunciation issues and some reasons why - and it is a pretty readable site given that it is out of a university. Although I still can't think why everyone doesn't think Mt. Shasta rhymes with pasta.
It also goes through some situations where different words have almost the same pronunciation - American stack vs Canadian stock.