Imagine that you're almost seventy years old. Throughout those years you've lived what would be considered a normal, happy life, having grown strong family ties, and having built close community relationships.
One day, in an instant, your world is turned upside down and inside out, when you find out that your entire life has been based on a mistake.
That is exactly what happened to Edward Ambrose and Richard Beauvais. Both were born in Arborg, Manitoba on June 28, 1955. A '23 and Me' DNA test taken four years ago by Edward's sister led to the discovery that the two men had been accidentally switched at birth and sent home with the wrong families. One can hardly imagine what a shock the discovery was, and what turmoil it caused in both men's lives.
Wab Kinew wasn't yet Premier of Manitoba. This horrific situation came to light during Heather Stefanson's administration. Her government, ostensibly on the advice of legal experts, took the course that seemed most politically prudent, and, hoping to avoid legal action, refused to acknowledge any culpability.
In April 2022 the men's lawyer requested an apology and compensation. That request was met with stony silence. A lawyer for the province finally responded that December, saying the province had no legal liability in the situation and that it would not offer the men any compensation.
After Kinew became Canada's first ever First Nations provincial premier in October of 2023, the men's lawyer tried again, and this time was told that the government would apologize for the mistake. That finally happened last week.
Politicians have offered apologies before. In 2021 Brian Pallister, Manitoba's premier at the time, apologized for having been misunderstood, after making inflammatory comments defending Canada's history of colonialism. Justin Trudeau has issued at least five or six various apologies since becoming Prime Minister in 2015 (though none yet for the dozens of broken promises of electoral reform). He's gotten so good at "saying sorry" that he doesn't even need to think about apologizing. (Yes, there's a difference. A huge difference!)
Watching Kinew's apology, I couldn't help but notice that it stood out from those offered in the past by politicians, which mostly involved reading from prepared statements in which the brief apologies were usually tucked in among, and often overshadowed by, political talking points. Yes, Premier Kinew had a prepared statement from which he read, but when it came to the actual apology, he set the statement aside. Then, looking each man in turn straight in the eyes, he offered each an apology that could be seen to be truly sincere and heartfelt, far more so than any I've previously witnessed from any other politician.
Here's the difference: Stefanson, Pallister, Trudeau and other politicians in similar circumstances were and are primarily concerned with optics - avoiding blame, or else looking good while accepting responsibility. It's one of the many games our culture teaches us to play. Wab Kinew, on the other hand, was raised in a culture that values the honest to goodness truth as the only road to a proper and effective reconciliation; a culture that has many such important teachings to share with the rest of us, if only we'll accept them.
(Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)
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