A riding that once looked almost synonymous with Pierre Poilievre is becoming a political battleground of its own. Federal public servant Sukhu Sekhon and Manotick businessman and lobbyist Goran Samuel Pesic are campaigning for the Conservative nomination in Carleton, the Ottawa-area seat Liberal Bruce Fanjoy took from Poilievre in the 2025 federal election.
There is one important wrinkle: the Conservative Party has not yet formally called the nomination vote, leaving both men in an extended period of organizing, meeting residents and building support. Meanwhile, Poilievre represents Battle River—Crowfoot in Alberta but is expected to seek another riding at the next general election. That uncertainty gives Carleton’s Conservative contest an unusual backdrop, with candidates trying to rebuild locally while the party leader’s own electoral destination remains unsettled.
Two Very Different Résumés Enter the Conservative Race
Sekhon and Pesic have both begun organizing in Carleton, but they arrive from noticeably different professional directions. Sekhon is a federal public servant with experience inside Conservative riding organizations, while Pesic is a business executive whose career has included government relations, public policy and registered lobbying. The latest reporting says both have been meeting residents ahead of a nomination election that has yet to be formally scheduled.
Their procedural positions are also slightly different. Sekhon said the party has approved him to begin campaigning and that he is waiting for an interview with the local riding association. Pesic said his application is being vetted while he has received an “in principle” go-ahead to conduct community outreach. That distinction matters because neither man should yet be described as the official Conservative candidate. More hopefuls could also enter once party headquarters formally calls the contest, meaning the present two-person race could become considerably more crowded.
Fanjoy’s 4,513-Vote Victory Changed the Political Map
The reason Carleton is available at all is one of the most memorable results from Canada’s 2025 federal election. Liberal Bruce Fanjoy received 43,846 votes, or 50.95 per cent, while Poilievre finished with 39,333 votes, or 45.70 per cent. The 4,513-vote margin was large enough to make the result unambiguous, but small enough to leave Conservatives with a plausible path back.
The election itself was anything but ordinary. Elections Canada had to accommodate 91 candidates on the Carleton ballot, producing a two-column ballot roughly 97 centimetres long. Special procedures were introduced because unfolding and counting such enormous ballots took additional time. Beneath that spectacle was an exceptionally engaged electorate: more than 86,000 ballots were cast. For Conservatives now seeking the nomination, those numbers are a reminder that winning Carleton back will require more than relying on its reputation as Poilievre territory. Tens of thousands of voters actively chose a different representative in 2025.
Sukhu Sekhon Brings Campaign Experience From the Ground Level
Sekhon may be a new name to many voters, but he is not new to Conservative organizing in Ottawa. His public professional profile lists him as a board member of the Carleton Conservative Association beginning in April 2026, after previously serving with the Ottawa South Conservative organization. He also played a hands-on role in the 2025 election as campaign manager for Conservative Ottawa South candidate Blair Turner.
That campaign provides a useful glimpse of Sekhon’s preferred political style. After the election, he told the Ottawa Citizen that Turner’s team had knocked on approximately 62,000 doors. His Carleton effort now places that organizing experience in a constituency where door-to-door contact could again matter enormously. There is also a significant limit to his ambition: Sekhon told The Hill Times that if Poilievre decided to return and contest Carleton himself, he would withdraw and support the Conservative leader. That pledge keeps Poilievre’s shadow directly over Sekhon’s campaign even as the nomination process moves ahead.
Goran Pesic Is Campaigning on Business and Policy Experience
Pesic is presenting Conservatives with a substantially different profile. A Manotick resident, he describes himself as president and CEO of the Samuel Group of Companies and chair of the Policy Insights Forum. His campaign says his professional experience spans more than 30 years across government affairs, international business, national security, defence and economic development. Current federal records independently confirm a long history in government relations.
The federal Registry of Lobbyists lists Pesic as a consultant and shows active lobbying registrations involving areas including defence, procurement, economic development, international trade and national security. Historical registry information also records earlier public-service roles as a policy adviser in the federal public safety minister’s office from 2006 to 2008 and as a senior policy adviser in international trade from 2008 to 2010. His nomination campaign emphasizes affordability, public safety, national security and the protection of farmland and rural communities. In sprawling Carleton, that mix is clearly designed to connect national Conservative themes with local concerns.
Poilievre’s Own Electoral Future Complicates Everything
Carleton’s nomination contest cannot easily be separated from the question of where Poilievre will run next. After losing Carleton in April 2025, the Conservative leader returned to the House of Commons through an August 2025 byelection in Alberta’s Battle River—Crowfoot. Elections Canada recorded 41,308 votes for Poilievre there, representing 80.9 per cent of valid ballots.
That Alberta arrangement was always unusual. Conservative MP Damien Kurek had vacated Battle River—Crowfoot so Poilievre could regain a parliamentary seat, but the party subsequently confirmed that Kurek will again be its candidate there in the next general election. Poilievre therefore needs another constituency. As of the latest reporting, the Conservative Party has not announced where that will be. Carleton is an obvious subject of speculation because of his two-decade history there, yet opening the local nomination process has encouraged others to prepare for a post-Poilievre contest. Until the leader’s plans become clearer, every Conservative organizing in Carleton is campaigning with an unusually large unanswered question overhead.
Twenty Years of Poilievre History Still Shape Carleton
Poilievre’s relationship with the area stretches back far beyond his time as Conservative leader. House of Commons records show that he was first elected in Nepean—Carleton in 2004, when he was 25, and won again in 2006, 2008 and 2011. After redistribution created the Carleton riding, he won there in 2015, 2019 and 2021 before his 2025 defeat.
In the 2021 election, conducted under the previous boundaries, Poilievre won 35,356 votes, or 49.9 per cent. Liberal Gustave Roy received 24,298, or 34.3 per cent, leaving Poilievre ahead by 11,058 votes. Comparisons with 2025 require caution because federal boundaries were subsequently redrawn under the 2023 Representation Order. Even so, the historical pattern explains why Fanjoy’s win carried such political weight. Conservatives were not merely losing a competitive suburban seat; they were losing territory their current leader had represented continuously, under two riding names, for roughly two decades. Any successor will inevitably be measured against that legacy.
Bruce Fanjoy Now Has an Incumbent’s Record to Defend
For Conservatives, the next campaign will not be a simple replay of 2025. Fanjoy is no longer merely the Liberal challenger who defeated a nationally prominent opponent. House of Commons records list him as Carleton’s sitting Liberal MP since April 28, 2025, and he has accumulated parliamentary responsibilities that give him a record voters can assess independently of Poilievre.
Fanjoy currently sits on the House standing committees on Environment and Sustainable Development and Veterans Affairs. His constituency operation also has a main office in Manotick, placing his parliamentary presence inside one of the riding’s better-known communities. Incumbency does not guarantee re-election, particularly in a constituency that voted Conservative repeatedly before 2025, but it changes the nature of the Conservative challenge. Whoever wins the nomination must persuade residents not only that the Liberals should lose Carleton nationally, but that Fanjoy personally should be replaced. The contest is therefore moving from an upset centred on Poilievre into a more conventional fight between a sitting MP and an eventual Conservative challenger.
Carleton’s Geography Makes Local Campaigning Especially Important
Carleton is geographically enormous by Ottawa standards. Elections Canada places the current district at approximately 1,873 square kilometres, with a 2021 census population of 124,416 and 106,504 electors on the official lists from the most recent federal vote. The riding is entirely within the City of Ottawa but stretches across communities with very different physical and economic characteristics.
Local Conservative organizers describe a constituency that includes areas such as Riverside South, parts of Barrhaven, Manotick, Greely, Metcalfe, Osgoode, North Gower, Richmond, Munster and surrounding countryside. That means a candidate can encounter fast-growing suburban neighbourhoods, established villages and agricultural areas during the same day of canvassing. Infrastructure, housing, commuting, farmland and public services may therefore resonate differently from one part of Carleton to another. Pesic’s emphasis on farmers and rural communities and Sekhon’s focus on extensive grassroots organizing reflect that reality. Winning such a seat requires stitching together constituencies that share a federal ballot but not necessarily identical daily concerns.
The Nomination Could Become a Long Organizing Battle
Campaign signs and door-knocking do not mean Carleton Conservatives are immediately approaching a nomination vote. According to the latest reporting, the party had not formally launched the local contest as of early September 2026, and no voting date was known. Sekhon said he could be called for his riding-association interview at any point between now and September 2027, highlighting how much uncertainty remains in the timetable.
The Conservative Party’s published nomination rules explain why campaigning can begin well before a final candidate is chosen. Applicants must work through the party’s application and approval process, and an individual becomes an official nomination contestant only after satisfying the required steps and being permitted to contest. Federal law ultimately allows a registered party to endorse only one candidate in a constituency for an election. Until Carleton reaches that point, membership recruitment, volunteer organization and neighbourhood outreach matter because hopefuls are effectively building campaign machinery before knowing exactly when members will vote. The delayed timetable also creates room for additional candidates—or potentially a major change in circumstances.
Taking Carleton Back Would Carry Symbolic Weight for Conservatives
Carleton matters because its 2025 result was so different from the Conservative Party’s national performance. Elections Canada records show the Conservatives received 41.3 per cent of valid votes nationally, compared with 43.8 per cent for the Liberals. The party emerged with 144 seats, up from 120 at dissolution. Yet its leader simultaneously lost a riding he had represented for roughly 20 years.
That mismatch is what makes the next Carleton contest more than an ordinary attempt to flip a seat. A Conservative victory would allow the party to argue that the 2025 result was reversible and that its local organization has recovered. A second Liberal victory would suggest Fanjoy’s upset created a more durable political shift. For Sekhon, Pesic or any later entrant, the challenge is therefore unusually personal and institutional at the same time. The eventual nominee will inherit Poilievre’s history, compete against an incumbent Liberal and campaign across a constituency that has already demonstrated it is willing to break sharply with its own electoral habits.
