Is the very concept of “Canadian humor” an oxymoron? As they say in Canada: possibly, or possibly not.

Canada’s history lacks the violent frontier mythology that continues to fuel the folk hoax of rugged individualism so central to the American identity. Rather, Canadian society was carefully devised to run on the oiled ball bearings of amity and cooperation, ensuring a near-Scandinavian calm, as in: an aversion to firing semi-automatic Russian assault weapons into schoolrooms; the casual embrace of free health insurance even for deadbeats; debate over same-sex marriage that’s about as heated as that over licensing dogs; open arms to immigrants, swarthy and otherwise; volunteering for U.N. peacekeeping duties, no questions asked; and a national disinclination to jaywalk, even at three A.M. on an empty street, because, heck, they told us not to.

Thus, a strong case can be made that life in unrestive, uncomplicated, unconfrontational Canada is altogether too relentlessly nice for humor to flourish. Lack of societal friction starves the mischief instinct. See also: belgian stand-up comedy festival canceled again … new zealand museum of comedy files for bankruptcy … finland-wide clown search proves futile.

“Canadian humor”—does it even exist? Theories abound and conflict and contradict themselves:

Theory 1: There are actually funny Canadians alive today, but all nine of them moved to the U.S.A., and once they got here they renounced their Canadian cultural heritage, the way Mick Jagger renounced his English accent. Mike Myers never makes Mountie jokes. Jim Carrey declines to send up the toonie, Canada’s hilarious two-dollar coin. You have to scour Wikipedia to confirm the Canadianness of Mort Sahl, David Steinberg, Michael J. Fox, Catherine O’Hara, Seth Rogen, the late John Candy and Phil Hartman, and that guy from that sitcom, you know the one. America absorbed Canadian comedians, or, Canadians would say, Canadian comedians absorbed America.* Lorne Michaels, the Darth Vader of American comedy, harvests all the comedic talent in his native land as ruthlessly as Major League Baseball loots the Dominican Republic of shortstops.

Theory 2: A distinctive Canadian humor style never had a chance. The British and the Americans, with their overwhelming cultural power, exhausted all the possibilities of English-language humor long before the messy agglomeration of territories and provinces was confederated into a sovereign entity called Canada, just after the U.S. Civil War.** This left Canadian wits bereft of original material and forced them back on the only potential for risibility left: the condition of being Canadian. Which, given the national psyche, inevitably curdled into a pathetically self-deprecating brand of humor, typified by the following:

Q: How do you get 26 Canadians out of a swimming pool?

A: Yell, “Everybody out of the pool!”

T__heory 3:__ Canadians are, by history and temperament, the opposite of aggressive, and so, unsurprisingly, their humor is defensive; they beat up on themselves before anybody else—i.e., Americans—can do it.***

Theory 4: Canadians have inhaled such deep drafts of Britishness (the Union Jack disappeared from their flag only in 1965) that what there is of a Canadian humor style hews largely to those twin English enthusiasms, parody and satire.

It has been sneered that the American idea of satire is a pie in the face; Canadian tastes have always been subtler, as befits a nation that tuned in weekly for decades to smart British comedy shows via the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a kind of junior BBC in the best sense. Meanwhile, Americans were doubling up over Milton Berle and Red Skelton and that ilk.

Satire also suits the shy Canadian temperament: you can savage your victim while masked in somebody else’s identity. Anything to avoid drawing attention to yourself, which is against Canadian societal law.