Richard Beauvais and Eddy Ambrose were switched at birth in a Canadian hospital 68 years ago, and grew up not knowing their real parents or their own cultures.
On Thursday, the two men were welcomed into the Manitoba Legislative Assembly to receive an official apology.
"I am sorry," Manitoba's Premier Wab Kinew said individually to each man.
"They were wronged from the very first day each of them arrived on Earth in a hospital," he added.
The boys were born on the same day at a hospital in the small town of Arborg, Manitoba.
But somehow, they were mixed up and went home with families living about 60 miles apart. Both men had parents they never met.
I wish nothing but the best for Ed, Richard and their families.
— Wab Kinew (@WabKinew) March 22, 2024
We hope our words today will help you both to reconcile the person you were for most of your life, with the person you were at birth. pic.twitter.com/M3NxwgXROT
"This was a failure of the system that went unrecognized for decades," Kinew said.
The boys' lives intersected several times without them knowing their connection.
In one instance, Eddy asked a girl from a few towns over to be on his baseball team during recess, not knowing she was his biological sister.
As a young boy, Richard loved fishing. As a teen he ended up at the shore casting for fish next to his own biological sister, unaware that they were siblings.
The mistake was discovered when Beauvais took a DNA test kit he received as a Christmas gift. It showed, to his surprise, that he had no indigenous genes.
Ambrose's sister took her own DNA test around the same time and discovered that she was not related to Eddy, the man she had known for decades as her brother, the BBC reported.
The government refused to accept responsibility until Kinew was elected into office.
"What happened to you can not be undone but it must be acknowledged and it must be atoned for," he told the men.
The pair has a lawyer seeking compensation from the government but it remains unclear if their case will be successful.
Meanwhile, they have been getting to know their biological relatives.
