In the winter of 1975, two baby boys born three days apart were allegedly sent home with one another’s families in what is believed to be the second such mix-up at a federally-run hospital in northern Manitoba’s Norway House Cree Nation.

“I can't describe this matter as anything less than criminal,” former Manitoba aboriginal affairs minister Eric Robinson told reporters at a press conference in Winnipeg on Friday.

“I mean, we can live with one mistake, but two mistakes of a similar nature is not acceptable.”

Robinson, who has been assisting the men and their families, called on the federal government to initiate a third-party investigation, provide psychological counselling and arrange personal meetings between the affected families and federal Health Minister Jane Philpott.

“It’s something they can’t sweep under the carpet,” Robinson said. “What happened here is lives were stolen. You can’t describe it as anything less than that”

Health Canada later agreed to a third-party investigation into what went wrong at the Norway House hospital. The government will also pay for DNA testing for others born at the hospital around the same time.

Flanked by their parents, the two 41-year-old men choked back tears during the sombre press conference.

“Forty years gone,” David Tait, Jr. said, who added that he felt “distraught, angry and confused.”

“I want answers so bad.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Leon Swanson repeatedly said as he wiped at his eyes.

Tait’s true parentage was recently confirmed by a DNA test, Robinson said. Results from Swanson’s DNA test are forthcoming. Both men still live in Norway House, located roughly 800 km north of Winnipeg.

Robinson says that both families have long been subject to rumours and gossip in their isolated community.

“These two gentlemen are not the only victims,” Robinson said. “We also have the families who are deeply hurt by this.”

Therapist Mary Wilson is working with both men, who she says are dealing with an “identity crisis.”

“It changes your entire life,” she said. “It changes what you’ve known and what you’ve been through to ‘what if’?”

Wilson and the two men gathered with their families for a “sharing circle” Thursday night to discuss the ordeal.

Tait said that the two men were “pretty much family from the beginning I guess (and) we just didn’t know it until now.”

This is not the first time that babies have allegedly been swapped at the federally-run Norway House Indian Hospital. Last November, Norman Barkman and Luke Monias from the nearby Garden Hill First Nation came forward about allegedly being switched at the same hospital in the same year, 1975.

“We felt that the federal government wasn’t taking this matter seriously enough,” Robinson, who was also born at the same hospital, said of the first case. “In my conversation with minister Philpott, it appeared that she discounted it in a lot of ways.”

Speaking from Saguenay, Que., where she is attending a Liberal caucus meeting, Philpott told The Canadian Press that the government is taking steps to create a third-party review of the “appalling” situation.

“It's impossible to describe how tragic this situation is, obviously, for the two gentlemen in question, but (also) for their families, for the entire community," she said.

"We have reached out to the gentlemen to make sure that they have the appropriate mental-health resources ... It's fundamentally important that we understand how this could have happened at the time."

Robinson believes that there could be more cases.

“Let me just say this: there are some lingering questions out there.”

With files from The Canadian Press and CTV Winnipeg