A well-attended Mississauga-Streetsville federal election debate was missing two major parties.

The Lisgar Residents' Association's Sept. 24 debate at St. Simon Stock School drew more than 200 attendees and the Mississauga-Streetsville candidates for the Greens, Liberals and People's party. But Conservative candidate Ghada Melek and the NDP's Samir Girguis didn't show up.

Association vice-president Scott Plavnick said that Melek had originally agreed to attend the event.

Melek did not respond to emails asking why she was not at the debate. Calls to her campaign office requesting comment about her absence at the debate were also not returned.

Plavnick also said that the residents’ association attempted to contact the NDP’s Girguis, who became the party’s Mississauga-Streetsville candidate this month. Plavnick said they didn’t hear back from the candidate.

Emails to the NDP's media account were also not returned.

The absence of major party candidates did not sit well with riding resident Stan Barua. He said he was hoping that Conservative and NDP candidates would challenge Liberal candidate Gagan Sikand on the Trudeau government’s record.

"The only other two people at the table were a 19-year-old People's party rep (Thomas McIver) and a very friendly to the Liberals, Green party rep," he said. "It was all sort of ha ha, wink wink, we did our best and let’s move on kind of response."

Green candidate Chris Hill was critical of the Liberals in his introductory remarks and said the party's climate policy "says nothing" and "won't actually get anything done."

"Don't forget they bought a pipeline after the private sector rightly concluded that pipelines can't get built in this country," he said, referring to the Liberal government's purchase of Trans Mountain.