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Security pursued the pair and dragged them out of the room, yelling.Ìý

Speaker Frances Nunziata called a recess of the meeting, and the room was ordered cleared.Ìý

Coun. Shelley Carroll called the incident “a more egregious breach than we’ve seen in a long time.”

As the two protesters were being removed,ÌýCoun. Jon Burnside appeared to push a third, whoÌýseemed to be trying to get past multiple security guards to join her companions.Ìý

Councillors resumed the budget meeting a short time later in the chamber.Ìý

The two protesters said they represented a group calledÌýVoices for Unhoused Liberation.ÌýAbout a dozen more of its members joined them at council Tuesday.Ìý

Outside, the protesters told the Star they had come to urge council to defund the police, invest more in housing and end forced relocation from encampments.Ìý

In the moments before rushing the council floor, the protesters silently discussed their plan on a piece of paper later obtained by the Star.Ìý

“This guard is on to me,” one wrote in blue pen. “Let me get up first and distract himÌý— then you go?”

“What if I jump the glass barriers?” the other replied in black pen next to a crude drawing of the chamber floor.Ìý

Riley Vainionpaa, one of the protesters who made it onto the council floor, told the Star after she had been escorted out of city hall that her intentions were “to talk to city council directly because they don’t f—-ing listen.”

Vainionpaa made it justÌýa few feet from Chow before city hall’s sergeant-at-arms, Yanet Quinn, and another security officer grabbed her, tackled her to the ground and dragged her out of the chambers.

“I wanted to go up to the podium,” said Vainionpaa. “I wanted to look Olivia Chow in the eye and read her our statement about how the police are harming people and ask her why, as someone who claims to be progressive, she does not care or listen to the most vulnerable people in the city.”

Other protesters unsuccessfully tried to breach a security rope, with some standing around the chamber reading out a written statement to council.ÌýAccording to a copy obtained by the Star, the statement demanded more investment into affordable housing, the shelter system, warming centres and better partnerships with grassroots organizations.

Members of the group, includingÌýVainionpaa,Ìýtold the Star they feel unheard by council, in spite of attending public consultations and deputing before committees.

º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøPolice Service spokesperson Ashley Visser said there were no arrests or charges laid for the breach Tuesday.

Chow’s budget is giving police a $46.2-million increase this year, upping the service’s operating plan to $1.22 billion.ÌýThis will go toward hiring 720 new officers over the next two years.ÌýIt doesn’t include salary increases expected in the police’s next collective agreement, which is still being negotiated.

Almost half of TorontoniansÌýÌýthought the º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøpolice budget should be slashed. It was by far the most selected target for a city service that should have its funding decreased.

“AllÌýof the money that (police) are being given could be used to solve the problems they claim to solve,” said Vainionpaa.