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Also they say "melk" instead of "milk" and often make an "e" sound where Americans would make an "i" sound.
No, no we don't. Some people do and I can't stand it. Much like "pellow" instead of "pillow".
I'll tell you right now though that I hear melk and pellow coming out of Americans 10x more than I do Canadians. Maybe west coasters say it, but not in my neck of the woods. That's a Michigan thing as far as I'm concerned.
^^I'm Australian and say 'melk' no one in my family pronounced it that way either so I have no idea how I ended up pronouncing it that way. Words like silk and pillow I pronounce the way they're spelt as well Seems like it's just one of those words that varies between native speakers regardless of where they're from.
As for the General American v. Canadian accents, I can usually tell easily but it's quite subtle besides the 'doubt, out and about' giveaways. Generally it just sounds slightly more British, a word like 'logical' for instance has a more elongated 'o' vowel in the US so it sounds more like 'lawgical'.
Some Australians pronounce "day" like "die" and in that case I can tell the difference between Australians and British. However, not all Australians do that, so it is not reliable.
I had a Canadian professor who pronounces "role" as "raw". I'm not sure if that is a Canadian thing though.
I just had to say it. I'm going to eat some feesh and cheeps, mate. I love the Aussie accents sounds blunt kinda like some British accents
Anyhow the Canadian accent is similar to the America's but I think they're accent sounds lighter if that makes sense thats the only way I can describe the difference.
Personally I think the two accents sound pretty different. Canadian is certainly the closest foreign accent to sounding American (next IMO would be the accent of Northern Ireland) and on first listen, it might sound American but I think it has a lot of different features. For one thing, they tend to not draw out vowel sounds, they say quite a few words differently and of course they pronounce the vowel in 'about' and 'house' differently.
I would never mistake a British Columbian for a Texan, or an Ontarian for someone from Kansas. I'd actually argue that some people in the Western and Midwestern US sound Canadian rather than the other way around.
And of course, the accent in Newfoundland is completely different, a strong Newfoundland accent can sound more European than American.
No, they sound similar but as a Foreigner I can definitely tell the difference.
The Winnipeg accent for example, is very easy to identify as Canadian. There are some New York accents that sound very similar to Canadian. I do though think that the Toronto accent is very hard to distinguish.
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Seems like it's just one of those words that varies between native speakers regardless of where they're from. 
