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By Scott Fraser

thetyee.ca

This week Premier Christy Clark and her cabinet will sit down with B.C.'s First Nations leaders. For leaders who were promised better by this premier, this meeting has been a long time coming.

The premier made it a leadership commitment to hold an annual meeting with aboriginal leaders, and made a show of addressing the First Nations Summit when she became leader in 2011. But after that, she turned her back on her promise until now.

For years, First Nations in British Columbia have seen the same pattern from the BC Liberals: big promises and elaborate photo ops, but little real action.

Again and again, the BC Liberals have said that developing a real relationship is a priority. Then, the government's focus shifts elsewhere and promises are forgotten.

The relationship between First Nations and the B.C. Liberals began even before they were in government, when Liberal MLAs went to court in an attempt to have the historic Nisga'a Treaty declared unconstitutional.

That relationship continued to spiral with the divisive referendum on aboriginal rights and self-government that the BC Liberal government held in 2002, when Christy Clark was serving as deputy premier. The referendum did nothing but destroy trust.

Yet even Gordon Campbell held annual meetings between First Nations and the Liberal cabinet until, in 2005, he committed his government to forging a New Relationship with First Nations.

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VIEW: Liberals need a new relationship with First Nations, starting with trust