Big waves always start off as small waves.

Is the wave that hit Nova Scotia politics this week going to sweep away Justin Trudeau?

It could. (It should.)

Here’s a recap: On Tuesday night, a Nova Scotia election that was supposed to be a foregone conclusion, a sleeper of a contest, very unexpectedly became something else entirely. And thereby shocked many, many pundits, pollsters and politicos.

The so-called experts prognosticated that the Nova Scotia Liberal government was going to be re-elected, handily. Polls showed the Grits with as much as a 28-point lead. But the good people of Nova Scotia had other plans.

The Nova Scotia Progressive Conservatives — and they are truly progressive conservatives, more on that in a minute — swept away 15 years of Liberal rule with a left-leaning platform that promised more and better health care. Tim Houston’s Progressive Conservatives captured nearly double the seats won by the Nova Scotia Liberals and were elected with a comfortable majority.

The Nova Scotia Grits, meanwhile, ran a disorganized, lacklustre campaign. Their newly installed leader, Iain Rankin, revealed himself to be the rookie he was — and, at one point, was forced to to admit to drunk-driving charges in 2003 and 2005.

Rankin kept his seat — but a number of senior, veteran Liberal cabinet ministers lost theirs.

What happened?

Well, the pandemic, for starters. Like their federal Liberal cousins, the Nova Scotia Grits were seen as arrogant and complacent. Houston and his New Democrat counterpart, Gary Burrill, zeroed in on Rankin’s health-care shortcomings.

And Houston promised the sorts of things that have become important to voters since COVID-19 hit: A $15 minimum wage, more paid sick days for workers, and rent control.

Another sleeper factor: The cost of living. Pollsters like Abacus — and others who have supplied numbers to this writer without attribution — have identified the rising cost of living as the top issue for voters across Canada.

So, the obvious question: Do the shocking Nova Scotia results portend a big change when Canadians line up to vote next month?

Perhaps not. Voter turnout in Nova Scotia was very low. It’s difficult to draw big conclusions when less than half of eligible voters are showing up to decide who should lead them.

Also: Alternation is real. That is, Canadians — particularly in places like Ontario — will often vote Team Blue at one level of government and then vote Team Red at the other level. Perhaps Tuesday night’s result was a case of Nova Scotians blowing off some steam, only to stay within the federal Liberal fold on Sept. 20.

Maybe. But most of all — and as I always like to say — campaigns matter. The Houston Tories ran a disciplined, smart campaign. The Rankin Grits just didn’t.

Federally, Justin Trudeau’s campaign effort has been as uninspiring as Rankin’s was. On day one he needed to clearly explain why he called an election two years early. He needed to persuade Canadians that calling an election — during a surging pandemic, raging wildfires and a deepening crisis in Afghanistan — was the right thing to do.

He didn’t.

Erin O’Toole has problems of his own — most particularly, an enthusiasm for vaccines, except where his own caucus and candidates are concerned. He’s given them a pass.

But, on Tuesday night, it was Trudeau who may have been hearing footsteps echoing through the halls at Rideau Cottage in Ottawa, where he lives. An election campaign that was supposed to be in the bag now, suddenly, looks less so.

Nova Scotia, you started a wave.

And it’s a wave that may well get a lot bigger and sweep away another Liberal government, too.

— Waren Kinsella was chairman of the federal Liberal war room in 1993 and 2000

It’s unnecessary. It’s unwanted.

And it’s been imposed on us by a Prime Minister who is unfit.

Because, make no mistake: Unfit he is. Untrustworthy and unethical, too.

He swore he was a “feminist” while neglecting to mention to other Liberals that he’d groped a woman in BC. He pledged to fight racism when he’d remained silent about video evidence that he’d worn racist blackface multiple times.

He insisted he’d be scandal-free and then he became the first sitting Prime Minister to be found guilty of violating federal statutes. Oh, and his myriad other promises, like balancing the budget or getting clean water to Indigenous people?

Those were all untruths, too.

He’s the UnPrime Minister. And this will be the UnElection.

Because we don’t want an election now. We don’t need an election now.

Vast swaths of the country have been literally on fire. Thousands have been forced out of their homes, or — like my brother and his family in rural B.C. — they are waiting for the order to evacuate.

The situation has gotten bad enough that people in Nova Scotia have smelled smoke — smoke that has wafted East from far-away BC.

And the virus, the cruel, unkillable virus. It’s surging again, pretty much everywhere. And Canadians are getting sick again — and some are dying from it.

In the past week alone, due to the Delta variant, Covid infections have exploded by 60% across Canada. That’s the worst it has been in months.

As former Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould put it on Twitter, it’s the “#DeltaElection.”

In Afghanistan, the people who helped saved Canadian lives when we had troops there desperately need our help – but Justin Trudeau is doing less than zero.  And his Foreign Affairs minister is refusing to rule out recognizing the Taliban as a legitimate government.

And into this morass Justin Trudeau wants to force an election? Why?

Because he thinks he can win back the majority government he squandered. Because he thinks his opponents aren’t as good as him.

Because of his ego, essentially.

His ego is immense. It is vast. It is without limit. He is known to sit on government jets, reviewing his Instagram photos. Not his briefing books.

And the evidence was right there, for all to see. For months, his vaccine acquisition effort was an unmitigated fiasco.

He tried to do a deal with a hostile foreign power, the Chinese while the Chinese were illegally detaining two innocent Canadian men. And when that vaccine deal predictably fell apart, he hid the evidence from us for months, thereby losing critical time. And Canadian lives.

For months, we lagged far behind our allies in vaccinating citizens. And we are only now near the front of the vaccination pack because of the determination of Canadians themselves, not the feckless, reckless Prime Minister.

His record, his performance, his values all combine to produce one irreducible, irrefutable truth: he is unfit of the high office he has held, improbably, for half a decade. He is unqualified and unfit.

Is he unelectable? Only you, Canadian voters, can answer that question.

Because the unElection has begun.

Kinsella was chairman of the Liberal Party’s war rooms in 1993 and 2000.