Manitoba compensates 2 men switched at birth in 1955 with $250K each in settlement

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Two men switched at birth in a rural Manitoba hospital in 1955 were awarded $250,000 each in the 2025-26 fiscal year, according to financial disclosure documents released by the province this week.

Edward Ambrose, Richard Beauvais experienced 'a miscarriage of justice,' provincial cabinet minister says

Bryce Hoye · CBC News

· Posted: Sep 23, 2026 6:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

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An elderly man holds up two picture frames to the camera.

Two men switched at birth in a rural hospital more than 70 years ago have been compensated $500,000 by the Manitoba government.

Edward Ambrose and Richard Beauvais were awarded $250,000 each in the 2025-26 fiscal year, according to financial disclosure documents released by the province this week.

"Mr. Ambrose and Mr. Beauvais are grateful to the provincial government for the public apology they received from Premier Kinew and for the resolution of their claims for financial compensation," Bill Gange, a lawyer representing both men, told CBC News in a statement.

Ambrose declined to comment when reached by phone Tuesday.

What happened to the two men was "a miscarriage of justice," provincial Justice Minister Matt Wiebe said in a written statement.

"No one can give them back the years that were lost but we hope the settlement brings some closure," he said in the statement.

The men were sent home with the wrong families in 1955 after being born at a hospital in Arborg, about 115 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

Ambrose is Métis but was raised by a Ukrainian family, and Richard Beauvais grew up believing he was of Cree and French descent when his ancestry was actually Ukrainian, Jewish and Polish.

A man and a woman stand together on a dock at the edge of water, with mountains in the background.

They didn't learn the truth until Ambrose's sister took a 23 and Me DNA test that showed they weren't biologically related. The results did, however, suggest Beauvais was her sibling.

Beauvais was raised near Lake Manitoba in a Métis community. He is a residential school survivor who was removed from his home in the Sixties Scoop, a process that saw an estimated 20,000 First Nation, Inuit and Métis people taken from their families and placed with mostly white families.

Ambrose was raised on a farm in Rembrandt, about 25 kilometres north of Gimli.

"The grief of what we went through, that will always be there

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