WINNIPEG–She freely admits that her 7-year-old daughter was sent to school sporting a swastika – the Nazi emblem adopted as a symbol of racially motivated hate groups.

She says she's not a neo-Nazi, just proud of her northern European heritage.

Now she's fighting to get her children back from Manitoba Child and Family Services, and finding herself at the centre of a case that has raised questions about whether children are affected by parental views that may be extreme.

In an interview yesterday, the woman, who under provincial law cannot be identified, said her politics are misunderstood.

"This isn't, you know, a bunch of ... skinheads running around the streets in neo-Nazi gear," she said. "It's not about that. It's about being proud of who you are and what you are, and I don't have a problem with anybody feeling pride in who they are."

School officials called social services in March after the girl showed up with what police call "hate-related drawings" on her body, including a swastika. Child welfare workers removed the girl and a 2-year-old boy from the woman's Winnipeg home. The government is now asking the courts for permanent guardianship of the children.

An affidavit from a child welfare worker cites the "behaviour and associations" of the woman and her husband as one reason for the removal, as well as drug and alcohol use.

The mother remembers the day her child left for school with a swastika on her body. She wouldn't discuss details but hinted she had not drawn the symbol.

"I worked a lot. I'm not going to say I was ignorant to it, 'cause I wasn't," she said. "That's all I'm going to ... comment."

The woman says she threw her husband – the stepfather of the girl and biological father of the boy – out of the family home three days after seeing court documents outlining the case against the family.

She says she has always worked long hours at her job in the restaurant industry to provide for her children and has never let her politics affect how her kids are raised.

She is vague about her political beliefs.

"I would never consider myself a neo-Nazi," she said. "I consider myself a proud Scottish chick."

She says she does not belong to any group, yet has a personal belief in white pride and talks collectively about a feeling that "people are very ignorant to our politics because of media bias."

She also defends the use of the swastika, pointing out that it is based on an ancient symbol for prosperity.

She rejects a suggestion that someone seeing it drawn on a child would be unlikely to interpret it as anything other than a Nazi image.

So how far can parents go in teaching their children what they think is right?

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Harvey Frankel, a professor of social work at the University of Manitoba, said earlier this week that the government could face an uphill battle trying to persuade a judge to remove children strictly because of their parents' political beliefs.

Manitoba guidelines allow child welfare workers to intervene in any situation where there is concern for the safety or well-being of a child. That could cover instances where the controversial beliefs cause the children problems at school or elsewhere.



