By Jill Sperling

Authors of new book find people really do care about B.C. politics

Apr 6, 2018 | 4:05 PM

KAMLOOPS — The authors of the best-selling book, A Matter of Confidence paid Kamloops a visit Friday. 

Rob Shaw and Richard Zussman signed copies of their book for readers at Chapters. 

Both authors are reporters who have spent years covering the B.C. Legislature, and decided to record some of the province’s most significant political moments in a book. 

While writing A Matter of Confidence, they were told nobody cared about B.C. politics, but book sales appear to tell a different story. 

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“We’re seeing messages from people from across the province, in some cases across the country who are enjoying the book, reading it, taking pictures of it with their children, with their dogs,” Zussman said. 

The book has spent two weeks at the top of the B.C. Bestseller list, and also made it to the Globe and Mail Bestseller list for Canadian Non-fiction. 

It recounts former Premier Christy Clark’s rise to power, and the historic 2017 election that saw the Liberal government defeated in a non-confidence motion. 

“It was the most historic time in B.C. political history,” Zussman said. “It hadn’t happened in 130 years that at a confidence vote the government was defeated only to be replaced by the opposition.”

But that’s not where the story begins. A Matter of Confidence opens with Gordon Campbell’s implementation of the Harmonized Sales Tax shortly after the 2009 election. 

“We could have written a book just about the last election,” Shaw said, “but without the context of basically Gordon Campbell, Christy Clark, John Horgan, and Andrew Weaver the election doesn’t make sense, so we broaden the horizon to 2009 to today.”

A few local names also appear in the book, one of them being former health minister and Kamloops MLA Terry Lake. 

“Terry Lake was widely respected as the health minister, even on the opposition benches, and we have a proposal in the book, he actually made that no one had ever heard about to get rid of MSP, which is essentially a payroll tax. [It is] interesting because the NDP have proceeded on the payroll tax now in government,” Shaw said. “His proposal was a little different, no one had ever heard about it because cabinet didn’t approve it, but we have the proposal in the book for people to read as well.”

3,000 copies of A Matter of Confidence sold in a little over two weeks on the shelves. A second printing of 4,000 books will be available in stores next week.