It's been eight years since James Atwill last saw his only child. He writes to her every two weeks and sends her cards and gifts on Christmas, Valentine's Day and Easter. He doesn't know whether she sees any of them.

His daughter, living with her mother in New Brunswick, is now 12 years old. When the 53-year-old Atwill told his story last June to a special Parliamentary committee of MPs and senators studying child custody and access, his words touched New Brunswick Senator Erminie Cohen deeply.

"From the first night (she) was born," Atwill told the committee, "I participated in taking care of her. I prepared her food, fed her, bathed her and clothed her, played with her and put her to bed. I spent so much time with her that she was called my shadow. Whenever you saw me, you would see my daughter.

"I don't know what she looks like," he continued. "I have never gotten a picture of her. I don't know whether she likes school, whether she is healthy, goes to church, or if she has been told about me. I miss her every day and pray for her."

After the hearing, Cohen went over to Atwill, asked him a couple of questions to confirm what she had already guessed: By remarkable coincidence, she knew his daughter.

"The more he spoke," Cohen said in an interview last week, "the more I realized I knew who this young lady was. I also told him she is very bright, very pretty and very musical. I wanted him to know that he could be very proud of her.

"His eyes filled with tears and he asked me if I could get a photograph of her. I said if (I could) I would send him a copy. Beyond that, I couldn't get involved because it becomes too personal. I don't know whether I should have gone over to him but I followed my heart. It lightened my heart to tell him what I knew about her."

Atwill arrived home from work on March 17, 1988 - the day after his daughter's second birthday - to find his wife and child gone. The couple had not been getting along but the child was the light of his life.

The former firefighter is one of thousands of men and women across Canada who are joining support groups - about 50 so far - to fight for changes in custody and access laws and what they see as other institutionalized inequities. They want, for example, access to the $20 million the federal government currently spends annually on women's groups.

The main focus is the special Senate-Commons committee on custody and access, which will make recommendations to Parliament next month on changes to the 30-year-old Divorce Act.

"Real equality in human relationships is making itself felt and there is an assertion of the importance of fathers in children's lives. Watch families and see little children with their mothers and fathers. I do not understand how anyone could drive either one of those parents out of a child's life." - Senator Anne Cools

Atwill agreed to his wife having interim custody of his daughter. The court ordered he was to have reasonable access and that his daughter would remain in Ontario - even though she was already living in New Brunswick.

Communication between Atwill and his former wife was through lawyers and after six months of wrangling, he drove the 1,120 kilometres to see his child for the first time since she left. He was a stranger to her.

His estranged wife made a formal offer through his lawyer to relieve him of all future financial obligation in exchange for him relinquishing all access. He refused and, he says, continues to meet his monthly financial obligations.

"My last visit was in 1990," he told the committee. "My daughter was so overwrought she became sick to her stomach. She was a scared little girl who did not know what to expect from me. I was the bogeyman from Ottawa who was going to take her away."

Atwill told the committee he decided to save the child more emotional upheaval and voluntarily stopped the visits.

Senator Anne Cools, a committee member who has devoted years to family issues and campaigning for gender equality in custody and access cases, wants shared parenting to be the legal norm and says she will accept nothing less when she and her colleagues draw up final recommendations.

"There is an enormous social transformation happening on the ground in this country," she says.

"Real equality in human relationships is making itself felt and there is an assertion of the importance of fathers in children's lives. Watch families and see little children with their mothers and fathers. I do not understand how anyone could drive either one of those parents out of a child's life.

"I see no reason why post-divorce children cannot keep having maximum contact with both parents," she says. "Why should they be boxed in? Human relationships need to be naturally spontaneous to grow. Children should be able to come home from school, pick up the phone and say, 'Dad, come pick us up in an hour.'

"I understand that people who go through divorce feel betrayed and broken, but I also know that the day will come when they get over the loss. My position is that the law and the system should not support the acrimony."

Cools says pro-male groups are mushrooming across Canada because of growing injustice.

"Imbalances in the administration of the law went so far down one side," she says. "So many individuals have been so brutalized that they have organized and reached out to give each other support."

Conrad Winn, president of the polling firm Compas, says the growth of men's groups is not surprising and is evidence that gender issues are becoming a major factor in Canadian society.

"There is a large amount of sympathy for men, especially among older women," says Winn, who has tracked gender issues. "Interestingly, there is more support generally among women than you might expect. Partly, it's because of growing cynicism about - and among - feminist groups and partly because there is more opportunity for middle-class women than there once was."

Men have been slower to organize than women, says Heidi Nabert, director of both Father's Resources International and the National Shared Parenting Association.

"From my observations, men approach the grieving process differently to women," she says. "Women can do therapy over the kitchen table with a friend but men can't. The period of denial seems to be longer for men because they have been conditioned that showing any weakness is not manly. I've seen men messed up over losing their kids, and beaten up by the courts, and I'm forever amazed how few of them don't just completely lose it."

James Atwill still keeps a bedroom for his daughter at his Cumberland, Ont., home and marks his calendar to make sure he doesn't miss sending his twice-monthly letter.

He says he is over any anger and now simply hopes his daughter will come to find him when she gets older. He photocopies all his letters because he wants to be able to show that he did not desert her.

"It's too late for me," said Atwill in an interview, "because I've lost all those years. I never imagined it could turn out like it did and if I can help it happening to someone else, I will."