Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Dr. Lindberg, I'd like to begin with you.
You've done a lot of statistical analysis and diving into numbers. I'd like to dive into some numbers in Europe. It's how elections have played out.
There seems to be a pattern, whether it be the AfD, the Five Star Movement or France's National Front. The Five Star Movement received 32% of the vote. The National Front, Le Pen's party, received 34% of the vote. It seems that in Europe the numbers cap at that one-third of the population that it resonates with.
The Pew Research Center did something quite interesting. Last spring, in most of the democratic countries—or some that are slipping—they put a question to the population: Do immigrants make our country stronger? What's fascinating is in countries like France or Germany, 59% of the population agreed with that premise. It seems there's a hard base of about 32%, with perhaps a little room for growth. Then there's something really odd that happens.
I'd like to note, by the way, that Canada ranked the highest in terms of people agreeing that immigrants make our country stronger. Sixty-eight per cent of Canadians agreed with that. That was the highest in the world.
In Hungary, it was only 5%, and it really stands out when we look at what perhaps happens in Hungary that's different from the AfD or the Five Star Movement. Whereas there seems to be a creep of autocratization in many of these countries, in Hungary there's kind of a sneaky way of eroding democracy. Orbán has codified this whole concept of Christian democracy with three clear principles. He propagates that view and you see it translate in very dangerous ways in the numbers. On that point of view, he seems to have the backing of over 90% of the population.
Diving into that data, and looking at it through that particular lens, it would seem there's a base of 32%. Once they are in power, and once they begin this process, if it's codified in a succinct, clean way, as we see in the example of Hungary, what do you believe could happen in some of the other European countries? Of course, Mr. Orbán is spreading this ideology beyond Hungary.