More about those protesters...

And we were worried that it might be a slow day to kick off the first of what may be a regularly occurring feature: a combination liveblog/open discussion of the daily Question Period. Neither the prime minister nor Michael Ignatieff were in the House, which made for a bit of an anticlimactic start to the afternoon, but just as those of us in the reporters' gallery were starting to collectively nod off, from the public gallery above us came the sound of civil disobedience in action, as what we initially thought was a lone protester exhorted all and sundry to support the NDP's climate change accountability bill -- otherwise known as C-311.

It's unusual, but not unheard of -- for a protester to slip into the gallery in order to capture the Commons spotlight for however long it takes security to hustle him or her out of sight, but this time, as soon as he had been whisked away, another voice rose to take his place, and then another, and another, until the entire gallery was a-chant: Not belligerently, and remaining serenely in their seats, mind you, but still -- it's not like you can run a session of Question Period in the eye of a flash protest storm. It's hard enough to drown out the heckling when it's coming from the floor, after all. Anyway, the guards -- who were, by this point, universally and thoroughly boot-faced, dragged the protesters out in gaggles of two and three; in just over five minutes, the gallery was cleared, except for a handful of non-protesters who looked as bemused as the rest of us.

During the protracted mass eviction, the MPs just sat and stared up -- perhaps marvelling at the fact that for once, it was the behaviour of the gallery that was the centre of attention and not their own. Once it was over, the speaker picked up where he left off, as if nothing had happened, but as far as the news cycle went, it was clear that the protesters had managed to trump the parliamentarians as far as attracting the attention of the media. Only a few reporters remained in the gallery -- the rest were attempting, with little success, to follow the interlopers with cameras and pens in hand.

UPDATE:

Colleague Barton takes over the story from there, and and there's even more coverage -- including video -- on the main politics page, so be sure to check it out.