Triantafilopoulos followed by calling the Liberal energy plan an "unmitigated disaster."

But that was just the precursor.

It was about 45 minutes in, when the floor was open to questions from a lengthy lineup of residents, that tension really came to a head.

The first audience member stepped up to the microphone and confronted Sousa with a sense of betrayal in her voice.

Stating that she had known him since he was just a boy, the older woman asked Sousa why, if he was so in favour of clean energy, his party waited until just days before the 2011 election to listen to concerned residents who were against the Mississauga gas plant to cancel the project. A definite sore spot in a community that was a conservative stronghold up until 2003.

"I am opposed and I'm still with this community arm-in-arm throughout those years, even prior to being elected as it related to two power plants," Sousa told the crowd.

"I stood with the community, many times, asking the questions of the House, seeking support from the local community and the Progressive Conservatives, who I invited to come up here and they did not. They did not stand by you. I did. And I will continue to do that always because that is my priority and I'm very proud of the record that I have."

The proverbial floodgates opened and Sousa's Tory opponent took the opportunity to charge that the cancellations were a "seat saver."

Even Jones, a soft-spoken high school teacher who did his best not to offend anyone throughout the evening, directly spoke to the billion-dollar price tag of the cancellations.

"It's almost an unimaginable amount that the government could make a mistake that big and absolutely suffer no consequences," said Jones, who was the only candidate to refrain from using pen and paper for his talking points, instead opting for a tablet computer.

But it was Rosolak who said he took a leave from his job at the office of emergency management for the City of Toronto to run for the NDP because he was sickened by what he saw at Queen's Park.

Adding to his opening remarks, which mainly took aim at the PCs and their proposed cuts to jobs in the public sector, Rosolak shifted his sights to the Liberals, "Speaking of nonsensical numbers, the reason why I took a leave of absence from my great job was to confront the nonsense from the cynical Liberal government that has clearly lost its way.

"I watched their Finance Minister, Charles Sousa, stand in front of you on the news and tell you that the cancellation of the gas plant was going to cost $40 million. I heard it — you heard it."

He added, "Then in the most cynical act that I'd ever seen in my adult life, the hard drives go missing."

Sousa explained that the cost of the cancellations spans a 20-year period and asked Triantafilopoulos if her party would have also put the kibosh to the project.

After about an hour of audience members asking questions regarding topics such as health care, services for people living with disabilities, small business and youth unemployment, Triantafilopoulos finally responded to Sousa's question while the candidates were on the topic of whether or not they would choose the party over the community on certain issues.

"We would have cancelled the power plants because we would've listened to our community years earlier and we would not have incurred the billion dollars that it took to cancel them," she said, noting that the Auditor General of Ontario determined that the contracts could've been nixed at no cost to the government, if the Liberals hadn't waited until just days before Ontario went to the polls in 2011.

Triantafilopoulos garnered the loudest response during her opening statement by rounding out her remarks with PC party leader Tim Hudak's One Million Jobs Plan.

"Businesses are moving away. We have a jobs crisis created by a non-stop Liberal economic mismanagement," she said.

The debate was sponsored by the Town of Port Credit Association, Cranberry Cove (Port Credit) Ratepayers' Association and Credit Reserve Association.

On Monday, candidates from the Mississauga-Streetsville riding will debate from 6:30-9 p.m. at Lisgar Middle School. The event will be presented by the Lisgar Residents Association.

There will also be two more debates between Mississauga South provincial candidates on June 3 at Clarkson Secondary School and June 10 at the Cawthra Seniors Centre. Both events begin at 7 p.m.

This story has been updated as of 11 a.m. on June 4