Two Canadians Switched At Birth Receive Apology Nearly 70 Years Later

In Canada, a simple Christmas day gift upended the lives of two men forever.  An at-home DNA testing kit has changed lives of Richard Beauvais and Eddy Ambrose. While Beauvis from the coastal town of British Columbia’s Sechelt believed and was proud that he was an indigenous, Ambrose from Winnipeg of Manitoba believed himself to be belonging to a Ukrainian family.

However, the DNA test taken by Beauvais and Ambrose’s sister had another story to tell. The test showed that Beauvais is not an indigenous but rather a mix of Ukrainian, Ashkenazi Jewish, and Polish ancestry. While60 miles away, Ambrose’s sister took the test and found out that he is not her biological brother. She was rather biologically related to Beauvais.

The revelation followed was life-changing. Both Richard Beauvais and Eddy Ambrose were born on same day at same hospital, in Manitoba in 1955. The two were switched at birth and was taken home by each other’s parents.

Beauvais took the DNA test which was gifted to him by his daughter, to learn more about his father’s French heritage. When the test suggested that he was of Polish and Ukrainian ancestry, he thought the test was a scam that didn’t even acknowledge his indigenous identity.

Nearly 70 years later, both Beauvais and Ambrose received an apology for the unforgivable mistake dawned upon them. Manitoba’s Premier, Wab Kinew, voiced an apology in person to both men. During a Manitoba Legislative Assembly, Kinew said “I rise today to deliver an apology that has been a long time coming, for actions that harmed two children, two sets of parents and two families across many generations”.

Both Beauvais and Ambrose led a starkly different lives. While the 68-year-old Beauvais was raised by Metis, an indigenous people of Canada with mixed indigenous and European ancestry, Ambrose was brought up in a farm in rural Manitoba.

Beauvais’s father died while he was only three-years old. He was responsible for his younger siblings while his mother tried hard to cop-up with loss. He attended day school for indigenous children. Beauvais was forcibly taken from his family in the Sixties Scoop, an assimilation policy in Canada, where the indigenous children were either placed in foster care or adopted outside of the community. For years, Beauvais was proud of himself for running the only all-indigenous fishing boat off the British Columbia coast, only to realise that he is not an indigenous.

Ambrose had a very loving and supportive Ukrainian ancestral family. However, he too was adopted after becoming an orphan at the age of 12.

Interestingly, both Beauvais’s and Ambrose’s life crossed paths over years. As a child, Ambrose once asked a girl from a few towns away to be on his baseball team at recess without knowing that she was actually his biological sister. And as a teenager, Beauvais’ love for fishing has brought him to the same shore as his biological family resided, who was casting rod beside him, unaware of their relations, said Kinew.

The two men’s lawyer, Bill Gagne told BBC that despite the losses, both Beauvais and Ambrose are proud of who they have become and the families they raised. He said, they also gained new family through the recent discovery.

Both sought legal representation through Gange, and asked province of Manitoba for apology and financial compensation. Initially, the province did not comment on the issue and claimed that the hospital where the mistake happened was run by municipality and therefore it is not responsible.

But after Kinew, who was Manitoba’s first indigenous premier since 1887, came to power, the mode of the answer changed.

The case of Beauvais and Ambrose is the third switched at birth issue in Manitoba. Two other such cases was reported in the Atlantic province of Newfoundland.