Grampa felt kids’ parents unfit

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This article was published 26/06/2009 (5968 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

They weren’t fit to care for a cat, never mind children.

That was the verdict of the grandfather of two children involved in a heated custody battle, according to a social worker who knew the family.

The social worker testified about that conversation Thursday as part of the ongoing custody case involving an eight-year-old girl and three year-old boy.

Manitoba Child and Family Services is seeking a permanent order of guardianship for the two Winnipeg children.

The government agency claims the children’s parents are unfit to raise them, in part due to emotional abuse caused by their white supremacist beliefs.

CFS seized the children after the girl arrived at school last spring with graphic white supremacist phrases drawn on her body.

After the children’s parents split up, their father returned to live with his parents and their mother eventually fled to Quebec.

The children’s grandfather told the social worker his son and daughter-in-law were still not ready to raise the children full-time after they were seized.

"(He said) ‘I wouldn’t give either one of them a cat,’ " said the worker, who cannot be identified under the province’s Child and Family Services Act.

The social worker’s notes from a conversation with the grandfather indicated the man felt the couple needed better lifestyles, finances and housing before they could have their children back.

After his son’s marriage to the children’s mother in 2005, the grandfather told the social worker he was hopeful his son would straighten out from past drinking problems and land a steady job.

"Then it all fell apart," the grandfather told the social worker, according to her testimony. His hope evaporated after the man’s marriage broke up, the children were seized and he moved in with his parents for nine months.

Court also heard that visits between the children and their parents were suspended after social workers felt the supervised meetings had gotten out of control around December 2008 and January 2009.

The social worker told court the children’s mother dressed the girl in a T-shirt reading "Thrasher" and a boy in a T-shirt reading "Skate and Destroy."

Workers became particularly worried when the children’s mother told them she was going to take photos of the children for a magazine she was working for and bring shears to cut the boy’s hair.

"We decided we needed to get these visits under better control," said the worker, who said the children’s mother then told workers she believed they’d "kidnapped" her children.

gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca