 Professor Will Kimlika, you are one of the leading experts on multiculturalism in the world and you've been one of the keynote speakers at the Matchpoint seminar at Orhus University. Most countries, they tend to see immigrants as a threat, but that's not the case in Canada, your home country. Each year, Canada welcomes a lot of immigrants, 300,000 immigrants per year. That's like the size of the city of Orhus. Does Canada have the record of the world of letting most immigrants in? It's near the top, it's near the top of the list. Certainly on a sustained basis, I think Canada is probably at the top of the list. Australia for many years has had a similar, very ambitious immigration policy. The statistics show that Canadians are much more supportive of immigration than the citizens of virtually any other country in the world, of any other country in the world. On a lot of these international surveys, they ask questions like, do you feel that immigrants are a benefit or a threat to the society? Canadians are always at the top of that list for supportive immigration. But why is the key explanation to why are you proud of multiculturalism in Canada? I think most Canadians, they look around the world and they see a lot of countries that would be very uncomfortable with some of their own residents and citizens. They look around the world and see lots of countries with very difficult ethnic relations, or racial conflicts, or religious conflicts. Canada has statistically what's one of the most diverse countries in the world, and yet we don't have those... Why don't you have the same ethnic problems, as you see, in many countries, including Denmark? Well, it's partly... This is a contested question. Experts disagree about what's the best explanation. Part of it is that particularly in recent years, we have a very selective immigration policy. So we admit people as permanent residents and citizens, only if they meet certain criteria, particularly in terms of education, work experience, language skills, and so on. We select those people because we believe that they will quite quickly contribute to the country, which indeed they do. And so compared to other countries, our immigrant pool, if you like, is more skilled, more educated, and so it makes sense that it's easier for them to integrate. But then the second level is about what kinds of policies we've adopted once they're in the country. And we have this package of policies around immigrant integration and citizenship and multiculturalism, which is quite supportive of immigrants to become citizens. We encourage immigrants to become citizens. We facilitate their becoming citizens. And the evidence suggests that most immigrants experience it as a welcoming... They don't just get admitted to the country. Once they're there, they feel that they're welcomed into the society. What do you think Denmark can learn from the Canadian model to immigrants? Well, it's a very different circumstance. So I don't think that there are easily... I don't think there are any magic formulas that can just be moved from one country to another. But we like to believe that if you trust immigrants to participate in a responsible way, and in a way that contributes to society, that they will reciprocate that trust. So in the first instance, when you've got newcomers who come to your country, you don't really know who they are. You don't really know what their background is, what their values are. So there's always a risk involved in immigration. And there's two ways of responding to that risk. One way is to say we're going to keep those people on the margins of society until we know for sure who they really are, what their values are. We're going to keep testing them and poking them and prodding them until we're sure that they're safe. And this is what I see is behind a lot of the recent European policies around civic integration. There's this endless set of hoops that immigrants are being forced to jump through, all of which are intended to kind of reduce the perceived risk of them living in the country. Whereas in the Canadian model, we start from the premise that immigrants are trustworthy in general. And so as soon as they arrive, we welcome them to participate in society. We make it easier for them to become citizens. And the track record suggests that, at least in the Canadian context, that that trust pays off, that they experience that assumption as being welcome to participate. And they do participate, and they participate in a very constructive and responsible way. So trust seems to be like the key factor in a good immigration policy? I don't want to say that it's the only factor or that it guarantees success, but I do worry that it's very hard to have a successful immigration policy if you start from the premise of distrust. I just think that that just creates cycles. If immigrants can see that the government doesn't trust them, well, then they are no longer going to see that there's any much point in participating because they know their views will be discounted. And so then they just further retreat and you just get this rather than a virtuous cycle of trust, you get this cycle of distrust. And how about in Denmark, what do you see here? Do you see that we have a lot of trust or distrust towards immigrants? Well, I mean, in terms of recent public policies, I view that as evidence of distrust. I mean, the last 10 or 15 years, I mean, this is partly related to the rise of the far-right anti-immigrant parties, which it's a terrible influence in every western country that has had this phenomenon of a dramatic increase in an anti-immigrant party. It just kind of poisons the political debate for everyone. Even though most people don't support that party, nonetheless, it just changes the tenor of the debate. So your advice to the Danes and to the Danish politician is trust your immigrants more? Well, it sounds very naive and simple if you just put it that way. I believe that immigrants come, they want a better life for themselves than their children. And part of that is contributing to the larger society. I firmly believe that the vast, vast majority of immigrants want to be seen as contributing members of helping to make society better. We all want to make our societies better. And so it's important to make it possible for immigrants to do that. Rather than putting up barriers and obstacles to their participation and membership, I think it's important to provide opportunities for them. There's always a risk, but that's a risk I think is worth taking. Professor Kimlige, thank you very much. Thank you.