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Ms. Jaffer, a Liberal, said she knew Ms. DePape as “a pleasant person. I’ve had nothing but nice chats with her.”

Even as she was in custody, Ms. DePape immediately issued a press release, referring to herself as Brigette Marcelle, in which she said she had realized that working in Parliament wouldn’t help her “stop Harper’s agenda.”

“This country needs a Canadian version of an Arab Spring,” she wrote, “a flowering of popular movements that demonstrate that real power to change things lies not with Harper but in the hands of the people, when we act together in our streets, neighbourhoods and workplaces.”

In a brief phone interview with the National Post after she was released from Hill security, Ms. DePape said she planned the protest because “I think that youth need to engage in creative acts of civil disobedience.” She said she objected to the Conservative government’s policies and that Canada needs “green jobs and a transition to a green economy.”

Ms. DePape was one of 15 university students who worked in the Senate page program, a year-long internship that mainly involves delivering bills and order papers and fetching senators a glass of water. The positions are highly competitive and usually reserved for accomplished and bilingual university students as a stepping stone to a career in politics or government.

Ms. DePape said she became a page because “I was interested in politics, I wanted to learn more about politics.”