A rather unique Question Period yesterday …
Six people were arrested and released, and two were injured — one bleeding from his mouth — after more than 120 people were forcibly removed from the House of Commons on Monday after interrupting question period with a climate-change protest.
The demonstrators hollered at MPs and chanted slogans, urging legislators to pass Bill C-311, an NDP bill that would commit Canada to meeting aggressive targets to cut the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change. The protesters said they were not affiliated with, or organized by, the NDP.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff were not in the House.
You can read all the gory details, including the names of those arrested — young people from Edmonton, Walkerton, Ont., Ottawa, and PEI — by clicking through here.
You can listen to what it sounded like by clicking here and listening to this MP3 recording I made of the affair. The shouting you here is from inside the House of Commons by protestors in the public gallery behind the Speaker's chair. I'm standing in the hallway that leads to that Gallery. You can hear me and a plainclothes security guard having a “discussion” about my presence there. Although the office wanted me removed, I was able to remain in the midst of the pile of security guards to watch 120 people being hauled out of Parliament's Centre Block.