Seven mayoral candidates debated city issues including housing, transit, taxation and policing through a gender lens Wednesday evening. Mayor Jim Watson wasn't among them.

There was considerable pressure on social media for Watson to attend the debate, to which he was invited in early August. He declined only after the organizers at NowWhat? published an open letter to him online.

Instead, Watson attended a dinner for the Ottawa Fire Fighters' Community Foundation.

Candidates who did participate included Hamid Alakozai, Ahmed Bouragba, Clive Doucet, Joey Drouin, Craig MacAulay, Bruce McConville and Moises Schachtler.

They were asked about a range of issues, including how they would deal with the fact that security on the transit system may be more of a concern to women and trans folks, or whether they were in favour of making police data about sexual assault reporting open to the public.

Few candidates had a particularly clear grasp of the issues, and a number of times the moderator had to ask them to answer the questions more directly.

They were all in favour of the proposed women's bureau, which is meant to address some of the gender-based issues that were raised at Wednesday's debate. The bureau was the idea of Coun. Diane Deans, but Watson was not immediately supportive of the concept. He did agree to discuss it as part of the new council's governance review this fall.

CBC's Joanne Chianello reported live from the debate at Carleton University's Minto Centre.