“Actions that harmed two children, two parents and two families for several generations.” Almost 70 years after being switched at birth, two Canadians received an official apology this Thursday, March 21, from the authorities of the province of Manitoba.
“I speak today to offer a long-overdue apology for actions that have harmed two children, two sets of parents and two families for several generations,” said Premier Wab Kinew, speaking before the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba. according to comments reported by the BBC.
“Sometimes we are asked to understand empathy and compassion by considering what it means to put ourselves in another person’s shoes. If this statement is true, perhaps our guests of honor here today understand compassion and empathy on a level that very few of us can understand. achieve,” he added.
“A mistake was made”
These apologies constitute an admission “that a mistake was made that affected them all,” the two men’s lawyer, Bill Gange, explained to the BBC. “(It’s) the Premier, on behalf of the province, saying loudly and to your face, ‘this should not have happened to you,’ and I think that’s an important recognition.”
The lives of Richard Beauvais and Eddy Ambrose changed from the moment they were born in 1955 in the same hospital in the town of Arborg, in the province of Manitoba, western Canada. Except the babies were swapped and each lived their entire lives in the other’s biological family.
Only in 2021 will they discover the truth. Richard Beauvais takes a DNA test and discovers that he is not actually from the indigenous community in which he grew up.
“A huge adjustment in their life stories”
Eddy Ambrose, thanks to a similar test, also discovers the truth. The two men come into contact and understand that they have lived each other’s lives. Richard Beauvais grew up in a poor indigenous family before being kidnapped in the Scoop of the 1960s. a Canadian assimilationist policy which consisted of separating indigenous children from their families and having them adopted by white families. Eddy Ambrose grew up in a wealthy Ukrainian-Polish family.
Today, the two men are trying to piece together their identities. “Now (Richard Beauvais) realizes that everyone is indigenous except him,” Bill Gange said. “There’s a big fit in his life stories.”
The two men, who asked the province for financial compensation, nevertheless say they are proud of the families that raised them and happy to discover another.
Source: BFM TV
