A pair of 68-year-old Canadian men who found out through a home DNA test that they had been switched at birth and been raised by each other’s biological families have finally received a formal apology.
Richard Beauvais, from Sechelt, British Columbia, grew up believing he was indigenous with some French heritage, facing foster care and discrimination for his presumed ethnicity, but a home DNA test in 2020 revealed he was actually a mix of Ukrainian, Polish and Ashkenazi Jewish.
In 2022, a woman named Evelyn Stocki, 1,500 miles away in Winnipeg, Manitoba took a similar test and discovered that Beauvais was her biological brother.
She then realized that Beauvais and her brother Eddy Ambrose were born on the same day in 1955 in Manitoba, in the same hospital, leading to the discovery of the switch.
Beauvais and Ambrose eventually connected and bonded over their shared twist of fate as they were taken home by each other’s biological parents.
The switch occurred at a small hospital called the Arborg Hospital on June, 28, 1955.
Beauvais and Ambrose received a formal apology in-person from Manitoba’s Premier Wab Kinew, for the trauma they endured and hope financial compensation might be forthcoming.
Richard Beauvais and his daughter Taryn react as Edward Ambrose speaks with media in the Manitoba Legislature after receiving an apology for being switched at birth from the Manitoba government in Winnipeg, Manitoba
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, centre, apologizes to Richard Beauvais, right, and Edward Ambrose, left, who were switched at birth in 1955, in the Manitoba Legislature in Winnipeg
Eddy Ambrose, a Manitoba man who was switched at birth, holds photos of his parents James and Katherine Ambrose
‘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,’ Kinew said in the Manitoba Legislative Assembly on Thursday of this week.
‘We are sometimes asked to understand empathy and compassion by considering what it is like to walk a mile in another person’s shoes,’ the premier stated.
‘If that statement is true, our honored guests here today will perhaps understand compassion and empathy on a level very few of us will be able to approach.
Beauvais told the New York Times: ‘We both agree that if we opened up and nobody else knew about it, we have just shut the book, and we wouldn’t have told anyone.’
Beauvais, whose mother was part Cree, attended a day school for indigenous children.
Richard Beauvais, whose mother was part Cree, attended a day school for indigenous children. He fell victim to government policy that saw indigenous children forcibly separated from their parents and brought into white families.
Eddy Ambrose said he had ‘a very loving and very supportive Ukrainian ancestral family’ although he too was also later adopted at the age of 12 after becoming an orphan
Since Ambrose, seen left, learned that he’s not really Ukrainian, he is eager to learn about Native culture. He joined the Manitoba Metis Federation, an Indigenous organization. He is pictured in February receiving his MMF citizenship
Manitoba premier Wab Kinew, right, walks with Richard Beauvais, left, and Edward Ambrose, centre, who were switched at birth in 1955, to his office in the Manitoba Legislature in Winnipeg, Manitoba on Thursday
Edward Ambrose and Richard Beauvais were born in a municipally run hospital in Arborg, Manitoba in 1955 and were sent home with each other’s parents
Edward Ambrose, left, and Richard Beauvais, with daughter Taryn, walk through the Manitoba Legislature after receiving an apology for being switched at birth
He said that he fell victim to government policy that saw indigenous children forcibly separated from their parents and brought into white families. The assimilationist practice in Canada became known as the Sixties Scoop.
The children were placed either in foster care, or were adopted outside of their communities.
‘Richard told me I probably wouldn’t have survived – it was that brutal,’ Ambrose said. He described his childhood as happy as he was raised on a farm in Rembrandt, in rural Manitoba immersed in Ukrainian culture.
Ambrose said he had ‘a very loving and very supportive Ukrainian ancestral family’ although he too was also later adopted at the age of 12 after becoming an orphan.
Ambrose worked as an upholsterer and is now retired.
Beauvais and Ambrose really only made the discovery ‘through a fluke”, thanks to the home DNA testing kit.
On occasion their lives even overlapped.
When he was a child, Ambrose asked a girl from a nearby town to be on his baseball team at recess “not knowing that she was actually his biological sister”.
When Beauvais was a teen, he fished on the same shore as his biological sister, who was even casting her rod right beside him. The two had no idea they were related.
‘I’ve been robbed of my life. It’s something I won’t get back. I lost that time. But there is the time now on,’ Ambrose said.
Despite the results of the DNA test, Beauvais maintains that he’s still indigenous saying ‘just because I’m not Native now, in my mind, I always will be.’
A photo of the biological siblings of Eddy Ambrose, a Manitoba man who was switched at birth, photographed at his home in Winnipeg, Manitoba
Taryn Beauvais daughter of Richard Beauvais, left, wipes tear as she speaks to media about her father and Edward Ambrose, right, in the Manitoba Legislature after the men received an apology
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, right, apologizes to Richard Beauvais, right, and Edward Ambrose, left, who were switched at birth in 1955
Edward Ambrose, left, wipes away a tear as he and Richard Beauvais, right, who were switched at birth in 1955, listen as Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew apologizes in the Manitoba Legislature
Edward Ambrose, right, listens in as Richard Beauvais, speak to the media in the Manitoba Legislature
Beauvais told CTV that he hadn’t given much thought to his test results until Ambrose’s family contacted him.
‘The hardest time in my life, I think, is when I had to phone my two sisters … and tell them that I was not really their brother,’ he said.
‘How do you have the wrong baby and give it to the parent? What happened at that time? It’s something I will never be able to explain. Obviously, it was a big, careless mistake,’ Ambrose added.
The pair have since recruited a lawyer to get to the bottom of how and why they were switched.
Their Winnipeg-based attorney, Bill Gange, told CBC that they were initially told in by the health department that the organization is accepting no liability and will not offer any compensation to the pair.
Gange said that initially, the province did not comment on their ordeal and claimed that the hospital where the mistake occurred was municipally run, and therefore not its responsibility.
But following a change in government that saw Kinew’s election – Manitoba’s first indigenous premier since 1887 – the tone has now shifted, with the apology alone a significant admission “that a mistake was made, that has affected all of them’, Gange said.
“[It is] the premier, on behalf of the province, saying out loud and to their faces, ‘this should not have happened to you,’ and I think that is an important acknowledgement,’ Gange told the BBC.
There has been no word, however, on whether the men will receive financial compensation, though Gange said he will continue to push for it.
“This is just my own guess, but I believe that as [at-home DNA test kits] become more prevalent, you will find other cases like this,’ he said.
Beauvais and Ambrose is the third known case of a mix-up at birth in Manitoba.
A further two cases have been reported in the northeastern Canadian province of Newfoundland.
‘It took a lot out of me. I lost a whole chunk out of me basically. It felt like someone ripped your heart out,’ Ambrose explained.
Beauvais said that since Ambrose learned that he’s not really Ukrainian, he is eager to learn about his native culture. He joined the Manitoba Metis Federation, an indigenous organization.
His two adult daughters have even tattooed the name “Ambrose” onto their arms – to mark the last name their father would have been given.
Beauvais went on to speak about the difficulty in learning that he’s not Native by blood.
‘I guess I fought for the right to be native. Whenever anyone teased me about it, I would fight them when I was a kid, and I was kind of proud to say I was native. And you don’t understand it until it’s taken away from you suddenly,’ he said.
Beauvais proudly ran the only all-indigenous fishing boat off the coast of British Columbia.
‘Now he realises that everybody’s indigenous but him,’ Gange said. ‘There is an enormous adjustment to their life stories.’
While Ambrose said that even though he and Beauvais are not brothers, they have an eternal connection.
‘I call him my brother. Even though we are not brothers, we are brothers in a way.’
