The more consequential resignation triggered by the expenses scandal is not that of Yarmouth Tory MLA Richard Hurlburt. It's that of Pamela Harrison, former NDP treasurer and longtime activist for whom the expenses affair was just one sour note too many.

For her, the bigger issue is that the whole tune is off. There's no sign that the NDP is different from any other government, she said, and no sign of life on the social issues -- poverty, mental health, low-income housing and others -- that the NDP is supposed to stand for.

"How foolish I feel," she said, to have imagined that decades of passing resolutions, organizing and working at elections meant anything. Ouch! And I've heard that from others.