Manitoba premier to apologize to two men switched at birth in 1955

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew is set to apologize on behalf of the government to two men who were switched at birth in 1955 in a hospital north of Winnipeg.

The premier’s office says Kinew will apologize Thursday in the legislature to Edward Ambrose and Richard Beauvais, who were born in a municipally-run hospital in Arborg, Man.

The men’s lawyer, Bill Gange, says his clients feel relieved and grateful after a long wait.

As newborns, Ambrose and Beauvais were sent home with each other’s parents.

Decades later, Beauvais, who had been raised Métis, did an at-home ancestry kit that said he was Ukrainian and Jewish.

It’s the third known case of babies switched at birth in Manitoba.

Norman Barkman and Luke Monias of Garden Hill First Nation, a fly-in community 400 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, revealed in 2015 that DNA tests proved they were switched at birth at the Norway House Indian Hospital in 1975.

DNA tests also showed two men from Norway House Cree Nation, Leon Swanson and David Tait, Jr., were switched at birth at the same hospital the same year.

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