When the FBI broke up a Russian spy ring a few weeks ago, I was calm and unafraid, almost James Bond-like in my level of deadly suavity.

The Chinese might be eating our economy like a carton of Moo Shum but the Russians were still comical lovers of vodka and dancing bears, cartoon baddies who haven't been led by a genuine mass murderer in decades.

And then ...

The first terse news stories of Rooski agents in the United States mentioned that several of the sly Slavs had pretended to be Canadians.

I went rigid all over. My deadly suavity melted like ice in a martini glass.

Canadians! How fiendish!

I'm an early 21st century American. I'm afraid of easily identifiable foreigners, people named Achnad, anyone who wears anything on his head other than a baseball or cowboy hat, people who eat sheep eyes, Mexicans dog-paddling across the Rio Grande, people like that.

But Canadians?

All props to any members of the Canadian armed services who may have served along United States troops during any of our military adventures, but who's afraid of Canadians?

Of course, the Russian spies weren't REALLY Canadians, but they POSED as Canadians — and, therefore, anyone I see who looks, sounds or says he/she is Canadian may be my enemy.

Worse yet, both my grandparents were French-Canadian, and my grandmother taught me to speak French the way French-Canadian people speak the language.

Will I be racially profiled at the airport?

"Excuse me, sir," the bored, barely-above-minimum wage security guard will say to me. "Isn't Dion a French-CANADIAN name?"

A cavity search will follow, and being in my middle 50s, many of my cavities will not hold up under a really determined search.

And when I'm not watching myself at the airport, won't I have to watch other people, to see if they're not Russians posing as Canadians?

"Excuse me, pal," I might say to the guy next to me at the bar. "Did you just order a straight shot of vodka with a Molson chaser? Quick, who won the 1972 Stanley Cup?"

And what about my neighbor, the woman who dropped by yesterday saying she was new in the neighborhood and wanted to know where she could get a pint of maple syrup and some borscht? How about that guy strolling through the park, the one walking a beaver on a leash? Don't they have beavers in Russia AND Canada? Or is that mink?

Until now, Canadians were perfectly harmless white people in parkas whose most annoying habit was bragging that they get free health care. If they bragged too much, you could just shoot 'em, since they never have guns. And shooting a Canadian isn't such a terrible thing to do, since if you only wing him, he can go back to Canada and get patched up for free.

Last year, my wife and I went to Montreal on our honeymoon. I remember the bartender in the joint across the street from our hotel told us she was Russian. Is she in America now, pretending to be Canadian and subverting our democracy with mixed drinks? As I remember, she poured with a heavy hand. Were all those doubles-priced-as-singles just a way of sneaking up on two American journalists?

That's right. My wife is a reporter, too. And, like me, she's of French-Canadian descent. Like me, she was born in America, about two miles from where I was born, though I didn't know her until she was 29.

At least she told me she was born two miles from where I was born, and I believe her. I told her I was born two miles from where she was born, and she believes me.

I think.

Face it.

One of us is a spy.

To find out more about Marc Munroe Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit creators.com