Is The Nova Scotia Election a Shot Across The Bow to Trudeau?

Forty-eight hours after Justin Trudeau called an election, voters in Nova Scotia went to the polls in a provincial election and in a shocking result turfed out the Liberals led by Iain Rankin in favor of Tim Houston's Progressive Conservatives. 

Will Nova Scotia voters do the same in a little over a month from now? When Parliament dissolved, the Liberals had 10 of the province's 11 seats in the House of Commons. 

But even if Nova Scotia votes Tory again next month it could very well be an aberration. The National Post characterized Houston's campaign as a "left-leaning platform". Whether Houston governs that way remains to be seen. For most of my lifetime, the Tories were officially called the Progressive Conservatives. That name still exists on the provincial level but for many years the emphasis has been on the conservative rather than the progressive. While most Tories in Canada (and beyond) have moved to the populist right, Houston at least tried to carve out a place as what was once called "a Red Tory." For Americans not in the know, the Liberals are red, the Tories are blue and the NDP is orange (but used to be brown and several other colors). 

Still, if I am Trudeau I would be worried. While the Liberals have consistently had a comfortable lead in the polls so too did the Nova Scotia Liberals. Unlike the Nova Scotia Liberals, Trudeau did not need to go to the polls for two more years. Trudeau might wish he had those two years back.