Steiner wrong; McGuire a viable candidate

Re: “Green party offers substandard candidates in recent election,” Oct. 13

After reading Amanda Steiner’s opinion piece, I came away a little angry, a little amused and a lot confused.

Full disclosure: Steiner hyperfocuses on the “incompetence” of Kitchener-Waterloo Green candidate J.D. McGuire, who happens to be my brother. But familial allegiances aside, I found this column riddled with out-of-context quotations and just plain incorrect facts — such as the fact that the Green party received 2.94 per cent of the province-wide popular vote, not 3.9 per cent as
Steiner suggests.

She also suggests McGuire is knowledge-lacking when he said, “I’m not afraid to admit I don’t know something.” Would you rather a candidate that makes snap decisions with no research or no constituency feedback, Ms. Steiner?
And she suggests McGuire is ill-prepared when, noting that the Greens had no specific policy on bullying, he said he’d “definitely support any legislation that made sense.” How is that a bad thing, Ms. Steiner? Would you rather a candidate that opposes sensible legislation just because it isn’t steeped in the party’s platform?

Steiner uses her “weak Green candidates” angle (explored for exactly 3 paragraphs in 850 meandering words) behind a thinly-veiled dislike for McGuire. If she wanted to illustrate that angle, perhaps more research was in order — McGuire finished a respectable 46th out of 107 Green candidates in percentage of votes, and he received more total votes than any other quad-cities Green candidate.

But that was never your point, was it, Ms. Steiner? Actually, other than disliking my brother, what was your point?