Martin Lukacs of the Guardian notes that the Ottawa protest may signal wider public protest:

The Canadian action heralds a new spirit of defiance in the broader climate change movement. It follows on two weeks of sit-ins at the White House in Washington last month where more than 1,200 people were arrested over Keystone XL – the TransCanada pipeline that would carry the dirty Alberta oil to Texas refineries. The Washington protesters successfully introduced millions of Americans to their No 1 source for oil imports, putting an ecological-disaster zone the size of Florida on the map; now, their Canadian counterparts showed they were neither silent nor passive on the issue. These are signs that the environmentalist community – professionalised and tame for too long – may have discovered a much-needed impetus for civil disobedience.

(Photo: Sean Kilpatrick, Canadian Press)