Province to apologize to Manitoba men switched at birth in 1955

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/03/2024 (634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Nearly 70 years after they were switched at birth in a rural Manitoba hospital, two men are set to get a formal apology from the provincial government.

Edward Ambrose and Richard Beauvais were born on the same day at the same hospital in Arborg in 1955. The babies were sent home with the wrong families, and the error didn’t come to light until more than six decades later via at-home ancestry DNA tests.

On Thursday, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew will offer an apology to Ambrose and Beauvais in the legislature, said the men’s lawyer Bill Gange. It’s expected both men will be present in the gallery.

Gange had been trying for more than two years to get Manitoba to formally acknowledge the error. He reached out to the previous Progressive Conservative government and the health minister at the time, Audrey Gordon, issued a statement through her office that said the Arborg hospital was not under the province’s direction or control in 1955.

But Gange said the province did have some involvement.

“Two-thirds of the operating budget of any hospital at the time would have been paid by the provincial government, one-third by the municipalities,” he said.

Following last October’s provincial election, Gange reached out to the NDP government — he heard back this month that the government would arrange a formal apology and a meeting with the premier.

“I think that it will be an important step in the journey of Mr. Beauvais and Mr. Ambrose in terms of their own reckoning of the mistake that was done to them,” Gange said.

It’s time for society to take responsibility for the two being switched at birth, the lawyer continued.

“When mistakes happen, and a mistake like this where a person grows up believing that they’re somebody different than they really are, I think that it’s important for society … in this case, the Manitoba government, to take responsibility and to step up and say, ‘we acknowledge that a wrong was done to you, and we apologize as a society.’”

As for potential compensation, Gange said he believes they should be given a financial settlement, but there is no legal recourse at the provincial level. The statute of limitations on cases like this has expired.

Minister of Municipal and Northern Relations Ian Bushie spoke publicly about the importance of an apology when he was in Opposition. On Wednesday, Bushie said it’s significant for the men to engage with the premier in the legislature.

“I think it’s very important that we acknowledge what’s been done,” Bushie said. He didn’t want to comment on the possibility of a settlement.

Ambrose and Beauvais grew up separately, unaware of each other. Beauvais was raised Métis and later moved to British Columbia, where he still lives. He attended residential day school and grew up believing he had Métis, Cree and French heritage. Ambrose grew up in a Ukrainian family in Manitoba. Both men suffered parental loss at a young age and spent time in foster care. Ambrose received his citizenship card from the Manitoba Métis Federation last month, to recognize the heritage he didn’t know he had until DNA results showed he wasn’t biologically related to his sister.

Ambrose’s sister took a 23andMe DNA test, which revealed she had a brother in B.C. She reached out to Beauvais, did some digging and confirmed the DNA results. The Ambrose family reached out to Gange in March, 2022. The longtime civil litigation lawyer had already been involved in a switched-at-birth case that resulted in a federal settlement.

Ambrose and Beauvais aren’t the only babies who were switched at birth in Manitoba. Two other cases were discovered 40 years later at a federally run hospital in Norway House in 1975. Garden Hill residents Luke Monias and Norman Barkman received a confidential amount of compensation after they revealed in 2015 that DNA tests proved they were switched at birth at the Norway House Indian Hospital. That same year, Leon Swanson and David Tait Jr. were also sent home with the wrong parents, DNA revealed in 2016.

Health Canada investigated both cases and ultimately determined the switches were accidental and that hospital identification bracelets weren’t often used for babies at the time.

Beauvais and Ambrose are both grateful for the families they were raised with, including the foster families that later took them in, their lawyer said. Neither Ambrose nor Beauvais could be reached for comment Wednesday.

“Both of them were able to continue on, to grow up and be healthy and productive people in their lives, and they’re both very grateful for that,” Gange said. “But at the same time, they recognize that things were supposed to be very different for them, so this apology is important to both of them.”

— with files from Danielle Da Silva and The Canadian Press

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca