The two women, in their 50s, were quietly standing on the sidewalk at Wellington and Elgin streets, at the northeast side of the Langevin Block, where the prime minister’s office is situated. Broughton was balancing a Bristol-board sign with her foot. “Please don’t attack Syria,” it read. “Enough people have died.” Passing motorists and pedestrians could see the sign — aimed at Harper and other western leaders over the possibility of outside military intervention in the Middle East country.

The two had been standing there less than five minutes when a man, who later identified himself as an RCMP officer, got out of an idling black sedan backed up against the Langevin and asked to see their “permit.”