Politicians are always going the extra mile for their supporters, and nothing spells that out more clearly than this video, taken from the Canadian Parliaments discussion into C-11, the current attempt to give Hollywood what they want in Canada.
In it, MP Dean Del Mastro tries to make a comparison for format shifting, and why it’s ‘bad‘, using socks.
“It’s like going to a clothing store and buying a pair of socks and going back and saying by the way it wasn’t socks that I needed, what i really wanted was shoes. So I’m just going take these, I’m gonna format shift from socks to shoes and I’m not gonna pay anything because it was all for my feet,” he says.
Of course he gets it COMPLETELY wrong.
If you wanted to explain format shifting using socks accurately, you’d do something more along the lines of:
Say you bought a pair of socks, and took them home. But then your hands are cold not your feet. Format shifting would mean you could use the socks elsewhere, and for the same purpose – to keep an extremity warm – by putting them on your hands.
Del Mastro’s comparison is so ludicrous though, that other MP’s are quick to laugh, we can only hope AT him.
Not that is new territory for his party either, as Conservative colleague James Moore has made countless poorly informed statements when talking on copyright bills, such as calling all opponents of C-32 (c-11’s predecessor) ‘radical extremists‘.
**CORRECTION** An earlier version of this story identified the speaker as James Moore, when it was actually Dean del Mastro. We apologize for the mistake.
