A non-partisan private members motion introduced in the House of Commons on Friday by Banff - Airdrie MP Blake Richards is facing an uphill battle to get the support it needs, but Richards says he's planning to do everything within his power to make sure it does get that support.  

On Friday (April 27) Richards introduced Motion 110 which calls for a parliamentary committee study on the impact on parents suffering from pregnancy and infant loss.

For the past several months, Richards has been reaching across party lines to try to gain support for the motion.  He says he felt the debate on Friday was going quite well, until the very end.

"We had advocates from four families that have been affected from all across the country.  They were able to watch the debate.  At the end of the debate, we had a Liberal parliamentary secretary which is sort of like the assistant to a cabinet minister stand up and give a speech on behalf of the government that, unfortunately, said they wouldn't be supporting the motion because they felt there was already enough support for these families.  Clearly, that's not the case because I've got hundreds of families from all across the country who have told me it's not."

Richards says the government secretary based his reasoning on changes that the Liberals have made to the Employment Insurance system.  Richards calls that argument ridiculous.

"One of the changes that were mentioned was the government had basic changes to encourage people to get back into the workforce.  It's a sliding scale so they don't lose all their benefits if they try to get back into the workforce.  What we're talking about here are grieving parents who aren't ready to return to work.  You tell me how giving them the ability to go to work a little sooner will help. It's not even related.  These are people that need to have the supports they need to give them some time to grieve.  We've got this government member telling them, 'well, we've got this program that will allow you to return to work earlier'.  It's complete nonsense frankly."

Richards says he's not going to give up on the motion but will actively attempt to educate the government on the importance of it for grieving families before the second debate on it is scheduled, which he says will be around June 7th.

"It's going to be a full court press.  We'll be getting back to people we felt we had support from before to make sure they're still on board.  We'll be reaching out to this member who made the speech, back to the Minister of Children's and Family Services.  We'll do everything we can.  At the end of the day, this is something I'm trying to do which is completely non-partisan and I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to help families that are grieving the loss of an infant.  I can't for the life of me understand why you wouldn't want to help.  I think maybe it's just a matter of a little bit of ignorance there and we need to educate some people a little bit better than we have already.   I'm still confident we can make this happen."

Questions, comments or story ideas? Email us at news@discoverairdrie.com