From left: AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Indigenous Services Mandy Gull-Masty and Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Rebecca Alty at the Assembly of First Nations Special Chiefs Assembly in Ottawa on Thursday.

Seven federal ministers – including Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne – spoke to the Assembly of First Nations Thursday, taking questions from chiefs in an attempt to improve a relationship that has cooled over the government’s major projects push and a deal with Alberta on a potential pipeline .

But one minister did not appear in front of the assembled chiefs in Ottawa as originally planned a few days ago. Instead, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson, whose handling of a memora

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