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She also repeatedly urged First Nations to do more to prepare for self-government, frequently pointing out that many Indigenous people are afraid of what it would mean to live outside the structures of the Indian Act, and would rather have “the devil they know than the devil they do not.”

Through her speeches, the image that emerges is of an Indigenous leader with strongly held beliefs, but also a pragmatist, someone willing to work within a system that many Indigenous people distrust to advance her people’s interests.

Photo by Handout/File

When Trudeau recruited her as a star candidate ahead of the 2015 election, she told the Post, she saw it as an opportunity to help move the federal government toward a new relationship with Indigenous peoples.

“I’ve always felt that if you want or see something that needs to be done, you get involved,” she said. “And in order to achieve those solutions… that Indigenous people have been asking for, for decades, we needed to get involved at the federal level. And I felt that my voice wasn’t being heard, so I wanted do something about it.”

Her optimism seemed to pay off on Feb. 14, 2018, when Trudeau stood in the House of Commons and promised a new recognition of rights framework that looked like what Wilson-Raybould had been seeking for years. She spoke proudly of the commitment in a speech in April 2018, calling Trudeau’s statement a “historic address.”

But the government’s failure on that file seems to have been a turning point for Wilson-Raybould. Last November, CBC News reported that the framework would not be in place before the coming election. The initiative had suffered from a lack of support from First Nations, some of whom were frustrated with the process. In February, appearing before a parliamentary committee looking into the SNC-Lavalin affair, then-Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick said there were also “very serious policy differences” between Wilson-Raybould and Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett regarding the framework.