I don't give a rat's ass about "What's Good for Mulcair" or "What's Good for Trudeau"...or "what's good for Elizabeth May" (who incidentally came out much more forecefully from the get go against this legislation). This isn't about what's good for party leaders.
There's something much more important...namely the basic civil liberties of the people of this country.
I agree, and i also appreciated May's strong statement that she came out with almost immediately.
I never expected Mulcair and the NDP to support this bill though. I always expected opposition, and I thought they telegraphed that well enough. While I did read news articles that tried to imply that the NDP was undecided (eg. http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/liberals-ndp-treading-softly-over...), none of these articles ever gave any evidence that the NDP was actually considering support.
While I'll say again that May's initial statements were great, the Green Party is essentially a party of one representative. If the Greens were to win 5 seats in the next election, that would be viewed as a very successful result. On the other hand, the NDP have close to a hundred MPs and a viable shot at forming government in the next election.
Because of the NDP's position (which is different than that of the Greens), I could understand Mulcair taking more time to make a statement. This would be both to consult with all his MPs (as to any preferences they may have on the best way to oppose the bill) as well as to construct the best possible argument and focus of objections (necessary to hold up to the much higher level of scrutiny his statement will receive than May's).
Would you accept that there are some valid reasons for Mulcair to take more before explicitly voicing his opposition and the supporting arguments?