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Union leaders deplored the acts afterward, but said they showed the depth of workers’ anger with the tone of negotiations over pension reforms proposed by the Liberal government. Unions and municipalities are scheduled to argue their sides before a parliamentary commission at the National Assembly beginning Wednesday.

The protesters left 20 minutes after they first streamed into the building, leaving behind a city hall littered with paper and drizzled in water, and councillors shaking their heads in disbelief. The protesters gathered outside city hall afterwards for a rally.

“Shameful,” said council speaker Frantz Benjamin, whose job description includes maintaining propriety during council meetings. “I find this shameful. I see nothing of our police officers. It’s truly disgusting. I understand that there are negotiations going on, I understand that they are tense negotiations, but it is no excuse for this.

“This,” he said, nodding toward his city council room, “is a ransacking.”

Councillor Steve Shanahan — one of the few councillors who stayed in council as the protesters filled the aisles — cleaned papers off the ground, only to have protesters toss them back.

“I know I have work to do — people in (the riding of) Peter-McGill didn’t elect me to sit around and be intimidated — so I’m going to work,” he said. “Montrealers will judge these people by the acts they have done.”

He mentioned afterward that he used to be in a punk band and had seen worse.