THUNDER BAY, Ont. - When Bruce Hyer, the Green Party MP here, first came to Canada from Connecticut in 1976 he survived by eating only what he killed, living first in a tipi and then in a log cabin deep in the bush, hundreds of kilometres north of Lake Superior’s rocky shore.

His experience relying on a rifle for his very existence informed his decision years later as an MP to vote to end the long gun registry.

But Hyer was in the wrong party to make that kind of choice. He had been elected in 2008 and again in 2011 as a New Democrat and NDP MPs had been told by then-interim leader Nycole Turmel to vote in favour of the gun registry. Hyer refused.

So Turmel lowered the boom and applied disciplinary measures. When Thomas Mulcair became permanent leader, partly on a vow to restore a changed version of the long gun registry, Hyer knew he could no longer serve both his constituents and a party whip.

So in 2012, Hyer became an independent MP and then, 18 months later, joined the Green Party.

Now, he’s asking voters in this sprawling riding to stick with him on October 19 and turn their back on the party — the NDP — that won the most votes in Thunder Bay—Superior North in the last two elections.

Historically, floor-crossers face long odds when they try to get elected with a new team. They rarely win.

But there is a good chance Hyer could defy those odds and win.

Why? Hyer’s floor-crossing is seen by many here as a positive and not a negative because he switched in order to stand up for a basic fundamental democratic principle.

When given the choice between obeying his party’s whip or keeping commitments made to constituents, he honoured his covenant with voters. They may yet thank him for that with more votes.

There’s another incumbent MP this election who is hopeful voters reward him for a similarly principled stand. His name is Brent Rathgeber, also elected in 2008 and 2011 as a member of a Big Party. In Rathgeber’s case, it was the Conservatives.

But Rathgeber came to find interference by unelected aides in the prime minister’s office unacceptable and, in 2012, he quit the Tories to sit as an independent. He said he remains conservative in his principles but believes MPs should have more independence.

Now he’ll ask voters of the northeastern Edmonton riding of St. Albert-Edmonton to pass judgement on his convictions.

The best recent example of voters rewarding a principled MP was Bill Casey, first elected as a Tory in 1988 in a northwestern Nova Scotia riding.

But in 2007, Casey decided Stephen Harper’s budget was bad for his province and so he voted against it, realizing he would have to leave the Conservative caucus and sit as an independent. In the 2008 general election, voters thunderously approved of his independent status, giving him 69% of the vote. He resigned his seat before the 2011 election.

Casey is now back on the ballot in Cumberland-Colchester, running this time as a Liberal. Ironically, if there is ever a vote on abortion, Casey will have to vote as his party leader orders — for that is the condition Justin Trudeau laid down for all his candidates — regardless of how Casey or his constituents feel about that difficult moral issue.

Casey last won a seat because he put voters above party politics. This time, he’s running for a party that will force him to put party above those same voters.

I suspect Hyer and Rathgeber would object.