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To the two frontrunners in Ottawa’s mayoral race, the stage at Tuesday’s night’s leadership debate seemed a little too crowded.

Mayor Jim Watson and rival Clive Doucet both expressed frustration with mass candidate debates, and Doucet said he’d be game to debate Watson one-on-one.

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“I’d just love it, one-on-one,” Doucet said after the event at Carleton University.

“Imagine an hour of us together? Then you’d have a real sense of who knew their files and how to go forward. But a minute, the way we do it here, it’s not really debate. It’s a statement of positions. It’s a bit frustrating.”

Watson, the mayoral incumbent, isn’t sure about limiting participation when there are several candidates.

“As a democrat, the fair thing to do is to let everyone to participate. I don’t participate in debates where (it’s) just the perceived three or four frontrunners,” Watson said, adding it’s hard to know who the frontrunners are without polling numbers.