‘What happened to you cannot be undone’: premier apologizes to men switched at birth at Arborg hospital in 1955

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This article was published 21/03/2024 (592 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two men who were switched at birth at an Arborg hospital expressed relief and gratitude following an official apology from Premier Wab Kinew for the Manitoba government’s failure to protect and care for them nearly 70 years ago.

Richard Beauvais and Edward Ambrose were invited to the chamber floor at the Manitoba legislature Thursday to receive a formal apology on behalf of the provincial government — one that’s been owed to the men since their shared birthday in the same rural hospital in 1955, Kinew said.

“I feel relieved,” Beauvais, 68, told reporters following the premier’s address to the chamber. “He did a fantastic job. I think he put everything at peace.”

Beauvais and Ambrose were sent home from hospital with the wrong families in 1955 and the switch was not discovered until a few years ago when Beauvais took an at-home DNA ancestry test.

Beauvais was raised in St. Laurent in a Métis home where he spoke French and Cree, and attended residential day school. He was taken from his family and placed in foster care.

About 100 kilometres away in the town of Rembrandt, Ambrose was raised in a Ukrainian home. His parents died before he was a teenager and he was placed with a foster family who adopted him.

The two met for the first time recently in Winnipeg. Ambrose described the encounter as an honour.

“The feeling was very emotional, for meeting someone who is you, but I am him — it’s a reverse,” he said.

Ambrose said the premier’s apology was what he’d hoped for.

“It touched me. That was very, very close to my heart,” he said.

Kinew apologized directly to Beauvais and Ambrose and remarked on their deep compassion and empathy.

“Such is the distance that each of them has walked in another’s shoes,” the premier said.

Beauvais and Ambrose were wronged by the Manitoba government and the institutions they were supposed to trust, Kinew said. The province of Manitoba made a terrible mistake and the government is accepting responsibility, he said.

“What happened to you cannot be undone, but it must be acknowledged and it must be atoned for,” Kinew told the men and their family members seated in the gallery.

“While we cannot take back the series of failures that caused your pain, we can perhaps make things a little easier for you now in offering our sincere regret in response to the questions you have long asked.

“On behalf of the Manitoba government, we sincerely apologize for our failure to care for you, to protect you, to ensure that you would grow up with the love of the families who welcomed you into this world.”

The premier also apologized to the Beauvais and Ambrose families for being deprived of their rightful inheritance, culture, identity and family.

“For these things, we are sorry,” Kinew said.

The two families are beginning to know each other, and it has been a positive, emotionally charged experience, said Beauvais’ daughter Taryn.

“No one is losing anything by this, but our family is just expanding and growing, and we’re just looking forward to the future and getting to know each other even more,” she said.

“This has been a really beautiful blending of families, and everyone is so loving and everyone just has the biggest hearts.”

Lawyer Bill Gange, who represents both men, was scheduled to meet with provincial justice officials late Thursday afternoon and intended to discuss possible reparations for the hospital error.

The men should be entitled to a financial settlement, but there is no legal recourse at the provincial level, Gange explained previously. The statute of limitations on cases such as this one has expired.

“Given the very heartfelt speech that the premier gave, I am confident that we’ll be able to work something out,” Gange said.

Kinew said the province will be there for Beauvais and Ambrose to support next steps, when it is appropriate.

“It’s words and actions from here on in, so what those actions look like, we’ll come to a shared understanding with Ed and Richard,” the premier said.

The government is open to looking at possible systemic problems that contributed to children being switched at birth in the past, he added.

“We’d want to figure out where we go from here and ensure that those steps are taken today but, of course, to do right by anyone who’s been harmed in the past,” he said.

There are two other known cases of babies switched at birth in a Manitoba hospital.

Garden Hill residents Luke Monias and Norman Barkman received an undisclosed amount of compensation after DNA tests proved in 2015 they were switched at birth at the federally run Norway House Indian Hospital in 1975.

Leon Swanson and David Tait Jr. were also sent home with the wrong parents that year, DNA revealed in 2016.

— with files from The Canadian Press

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca