Bill Casey, seen here in 2007, resigned as MP to take a $140,000 job as Nova Scotia's senior representative in Ottawa. Bill Casey, seen here in 2007, resigned as MP to take a $140,000 job as Nova Scotia's senior representative in Ottawa. (Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press)

Voters in a Nova Scotia riding will head to the polls next month to pick a replacement for Bill Casey, the Tory-turned-Independent MP who resigned last spring.

A federal byelection is scheduled Nov. 9 for Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Sunday.

The seat has been vacant since April, when Casey stepped down as MP to become the province's senior representative in Ottawa.

Casey was first elected to the House of Commons in 1988 as a Progressive Conservative. He was defeated in 1993, but re-elected in 1997, 2000, 2004 and 2006.

In 2007, he was kicked out of the Conservative caucus for voting against a budget bill he said denied Nova Scotia the benefits promised in an offshore revenue deal.

He was re-elected the following year as an Independent with 69 per cent of the vote, a staggering 22,000 votes ahead of his closest challenger, a New Democrat.

There will also be byelections Nov. 9 in one riding in B.C. and two ridings in Quebec.