news Boos, brawl and blood disrupt Canada's parliament

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Boos, brawl and blood disrupt Canada's parliament



29 minutes ago

OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada's parliamentary business was briefly disrupted Monday by environmental protestors heckling lawmakers from a public gallery.


Some 120 young protesters were escorted by security from the House after halting Question Period for five minutes with jeers urging Parliament to pass a bill setting out deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions.

"There was a disturbance in the gallery and security removed the people causing it," Heather Bradley, spokeswoman for the Office of the Speaker of the House of Commons, told AFP.

One man was injured in a scuffle with security officers and offered medical assistance for a cut to his nose, but declined, she said. Six others were temporarily detained for identification while the rest were escorted outside.

A spokesman for the Green Party said the protestors were stragglers from a weekend climate conference in Ottawa in support of the International Day of Climate Action on Saturday.

They started shouting "pass bill C311" as a minister stood to answer an opposition lawmaker's question.

The proposed Climate Change Accountability Act would commit the Canadian government to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels in line with its Kyoto Protocol obligations.

Canada's ruling Conservatives say the Kyoto targets agreed to by a previous administration are unattainable, and in 2007 laid out a new plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60-70 percent by 2050 from 2006 levels.

The private member's bill, first proposed in October 2006, has been stalled time and again by political wrangling, and last year by elections. Its third reincarnation was supported by a majority in an April parliamentary vote.

But it is not yet clear if opposition parties are now ready to risk a fourth snap election in five years to push it through the House in defiance of the government.