The idea of Vision Vancouver morphing into Vision B.C. doesn’t appear to be going away.

Ian Baillie, who was named Vision’s executive director in March, told the Straight that he gets asked “almost everyday” by just about everybody about this matter.

“People bring it up to me not in a negative way but more in a hopeful way,” Baillie said by phone, when asked what has become of talk of Vision going provincial as an alternative to the NDP.

Such speculation was first brought to the fore in a report by the Globe and Mail last summer, although it was quickly tamped down by Vision executives.

“I say no,” Baillie said. “We’re a municipal party and we’re focused on winning the next election. That’s it. We don’t have any provincial ambitions for a Vision B.C. party.

“We’re just focused on municipal, and winning the next election for Gregor,” Baillie added, referring to Vision mayor Gregor Robertson.

Results of a survey released last month by Angus Reid showed that almost half of respondents (49 percent) believe that British Columbia needs a new party. The same survey indicated that respondents in Metro Vancouver (52 percent) and the B.C. Interior (54 percent) are more likely to support the creation of a new party.

“A new party with a centre-left ideology would garner the backing of 34 per cent of decided voters, followed by the BC NDP with 28 per cent, and the BC Liberals with 23 per cent,” stated an Angus Reid press release in April.

In last year’s Globe and Mail report, Cariboo North NDP MLA Bob Simpson stated that he has heard “rumblings” regarding the matter of whether it’s time to have a Vision B.C. party.

Asked by the Straight in a recent phone interview about this, Simpson said, “The idea of a Vision B.C. has not evolved.”

However, Simpson said that he’s aware of survey results indicating an appetite for a new player on the provincial political scene.

“I think it’s a generalized dissatisfaction with politics, the way that politics has been playing out, not just here in British Columbia,” Simpson said. “I think it’s a general case...part of it is because we’ve allowed democracy to become perpetual electioneering. The general public is quite sick of that.”

Is this bad news for the provincial New Democrats?

“It can be if we don’t have something more to say than, ”˜Don’t vote for those guys,’” Simpson said. “I think that’s what that poll indicated. [NDP leader] Carole James admitted it after the election that we’re not providing a deliberate, articulate, cogent vision for British Columbia. If we persist in only providing the reasons why people can’t vote for the Liberals, then I think we’re just chasing people away from the polls.”