OVER the last few days since January 7, when the RCMP began their enforcement of the court ordered injunction, there has been ongoing dialogue between the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, Coastal GasLink (CGL) and the RCMP.

According to the RCMP, during an extended meeting on January 10,  which lasted four and a half hours, the parties were able to come to an understanding on several items:

– From this point forward, the camp set up by the Unist’ot’en across the Morice River Bridge will be officially referred to as the “Unist’ot’en Healing Centre”;

– The temporary exclusion zone set up by the RCMP will be removed in the morning of January 11 once access to the Morice River Bridge is established;

– There will be continued police presence conducting roving patrols of the Morice West Forest Service Road to ensure the safety of the individuals at the Healing Centre and of CGL employees;

– To ensure the safety and security of all individuals involved, a Community-Industry Safety Office (C-ISO) will be placed in the Morice West Forest Service Road corridor as a temporary RCMP detachment. It will remain in place as long as deemed necessary by all parties;

– Police officers working out of the C-ISO will be General Duty police officers and will undergo cultural awareness training on the Wet’suwet’en traditions and will have enhanced training in conflict resolution.

“We would like to once again emphasize that the RCMP’s focus remains on creating an environment conducive to getting all parties to come to the table and continue to participate in these fruitful discussions. We will do everything possible to facilitate and support those meetings moving forward, while maintaining peace and keeping everyone safe,” the RCMP said in a statement on Thursday.