Let me continue with your message there. I want to commend my premier, Wab Kinew, and the NDP in Manitoba. What they envisioned is now an inclusionary process of indigenous governments playing a role in the future of energy. In Manitoba right now, there are 600 megawatts put out for tender, but it's only for indigenous governments to bid on. They must always maintain 51% ownership. We are actually bidding right now with our government on 200-300 megawatts, and that's going to light up Ottawa. If you want to know how much power that is, it's a lot of power. When you start looking at it, that's a good example of how it can be done.
We're also looking at the future of the Port of Churchill. Again, there'll be a very big role for indigenous governments to be owners and participants. Industry has reversed the ideology of us knocking on the door and begging industry for a job. The wraparound now, the change, is that industry is now knocking on our door. We have 100% control. Only we can tender for this, and only we can own this. It's a different change maker, but it's a big one.
Enbridge is another example. We have a very good partnership with Enbridge. The president and I had a good relationship. Do you know what happens and the danger of that? That's why there are questions of what type of security we should have, and what kind of protection we should have if we allow national interests and national companies, maybe not even from Canada, to come and bid on making pipelines, making mines or taking natural resources? They're going to be after us.
With Enbridge, for example, we had a bid from an American company. We partnered with an American company and we won the bid. Right after we won the bid, the American company came back to us and said, “Okay, now we're going to renegotiate your percentage.” We said, “Whoa, wait a second. You won the bid based on our numbers and your numbers. You can't come back and change it.” The company said, “Yes, we can.” I met the president of Enbridge. He contacted the company and said that if it did not honour that bid, it would be out, it would be gone. Trust me, it honoured the bid immediately. It takes a good relationship for the president to take it seriously and call the component that was bidding on this, trying to, I would say, cheat us at the end of the day.
We have to be careful with big companies because, as I said, shareholders are their bosses, and that's who they report to. However, at the end of the day, we need to make sure there are guaranteed set-asides. We need to ensure there are guaranteed assurances that industry must—must and shall, and all the proper legal jargon you want to use—have no choice but to have us at the table on the inclusionary and the environmental side.
What does worry me is that if it's not government-to-government and nation-to-nation...That's what your government has been proposing now for quite a number of years. It's essential it stays that way. I have no disrespect to David Suzuki. I'm a very big fan of his. However, when people keep talking about indigenous people, they never ask me what my views are. They speak on us and about us. I'm not criticizing them, but I just don't like it when somebody speaks about my issues and my concerns.