Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew is scheduled to say sorry on behalf of the government to two men who were exchanged 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-operated hospital in Arborg, Man.
The men’s lawyer, Bill Gange, says his clients feel relieved and thankful after a long wait.
As infants, Ambrose and Beauvais were taken home with each other’s parents.
Many years later, Beauvais, who had been brought up Métis, did a home ancestry kit that indicated he was Ukrainian and Jewish.
It’s the third known case of babies exchanged at birth in Manitoba.
Norman Barkman and Luke Monias of Garden Hill First Nation, a fly-in community 400 kilometers northeast of Winnipeg, disclosed in 2015 that DNA tests established they were exchanged at birth at the Norway House Indian Hospital in 1975.
DNA tests also indicated two men from Norway House Cree Nation, Leon Swanson and David Tait, Jr., were exchanged at birth at the same hospital the same year.
