Peter Jon Mitchell
Peter Jon Mitchell is the Program Director for Cardus Family.
Bio last updated June 6th, 2023.
Articles by Peter Jon Mitchell
The Irreplaceable Place of Parents
By Peter Jon Mitchell
December 10, 2021
Marking the 30th anniversary of Canada ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Peter Jon Mitchell examines how much it has put the State between children and their families.
Writing during the height of debate around the CRC in the mid-1990s, father and son lawyers Bruce and Jonathan Hafen argued that the United Nations showed its hand when a UN publication guide lauded the CRC as offering a “new concept of separate rights for children with the Government accepting the responsibility of protecting the child from the power of parents While children certainly are individuals who possess increasing degrees of autonomy as they mature, the focus on child autonomy rights in public policy results in policies that detach children from their closest support structures such as family Children remain vulnerable, requiring the State to not only protect children’s autonomy, but to assume a support role it is ill-equipped to adequately fulfill Recognizing children’s dignity should compel adults to protect children from harm and nurture them towards increasing autonomy as they grow into adulthood
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Missing Marriages, Empty Baby Carriages
Peter Jon Mitchell
June 28, 2021
Peter Jon Mitchell, Cardus Family Program Director, reports on the link between Canada’s severe baby-making problem and young Canadians increasingly choosing to delay or reject marriage.
As Canada emerges from the pandemic it is time to start having a substantial discussion about the country’s sagging fertility rate There are complex social and cultural contributions to low fertility that governments are less equipped to address, including attitudes towards marriage, partnership and...
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What’s Wrong With Canada’s Child Care Picture?
Peter Stockland with Peter Jon Mitchell
September 17, 2019
Peter Jon Mitchell, acting director of Cardus Family, details a new report showing how federal and provincial child care policies distort the way Canadians care for their kids.
Are people paying attention to this and saying, "Okay, we need to take child care into account as a serious election issue?" That means there's 40 per cent out there who aren't in a daycare and the ones in child care are in diverse forms of care PS: You chose to look at the federal child care appro...
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More Money for Canadians With Kids
Peter Jon Mitchell
July 18, 2019
The Canada Child Benefit program is popular and offers families choice, but does have its flaws, reports Peter Jon Mitchell. They won’t be so noticeable this week, he notes, as payments to parents go up.
Canadian parents will receive an increase in the Canada Child Benefit (CCB) this week The purpose of the CCB is to decrease child poverty and recognize the contribution of parents in raising children ...
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Cultivating A Culture of Fatherhood
Peter Jon Mitchell
June 14, 2019
Involvement in faith communities helps support and encourage healthy fatherhood and family life, writes Cardus Family program director Peter Jon Mitchell. And our culture's veering away from these spaces is a risk.
Public messaging on father involvement is important, but spaces like religious communities where fatherhood is valued and promoted remain a valuable resource for the modern father Faith communities play a significant role in strengthening and supporting fathers and are associated with marital qualit...
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Ontario Budget Shifts the Child Care Debate
Peter Jon Mitchell
April 12, 2019
Peter Jon Mitchell, acting director of the Cardus Family program, sees a lot to like in the Ford government’s offer of tax rebates to make child care more flexible and affordable.
Without moving toward a government-run daycare system, it would make child care generally more affordable, recognize that parents have a right to choose the kind of care that works for their family, and it would be relatively cost-effective If parents choose not to use a paid child care provider, th...
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Why It Pays to Volunteer
Peter Jon Mitchell
April 10, 2019
Peter Jon Mitchell, acting Program Director of Cardus Family, writes that while no one disputes the personal and social benefits of paid employment, National Volunteer Week is a time to remind ourselves of the significant contribution from those who labour for love of neighbour.
Yet, it’s worth remembering during National Volunteer Week that we owe much of our wellbeing and quality of life in Canada to unpaid work that legions of volunteers perform National Volunteer Week reminds us that Canadians, regardless of employment status, contribute to creating vibrant communities ...
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Saying "I Do" Does Matter
Peter Jon Mitchell
March 15, 2019
Peter Jon Mitchell, acting director of think tank Cardus’ family program, reports on new global and Canadian data showing marriage brings significantly higher family life satisfaction than does cohabiting.
The GFGS found that 75 per cent of Canadian married parents agree that “their relationship with their partner is more important than almost anything else in life GFGS suggest that marriage is more than a luxury; it’s a positive contributor to family stability and family life satisfaction ...
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Late To Find Love
Peter Stockland with Peter Jon Mitchell
November 14, 2018
Senior researcher Peter Jon Mitchell talks with Convivium Publisher Peter Stockland about a Cardus Family study released yesterday showing a steep decline in young Canadians tying the knot or even living together.
Peter Stockland: It’s sort of two-fold, isn't it? For the people in that age group themselves, it’s a critical time to understand what it means to be in a stable relationship or develop a stable relationship Certainly, there are other factors that might be contributing to a delay in partnership or n...
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A Richer Way To Kiss Dating Goodbye
Peter Jon Mitchell
November 6, 2018
Reviewing a documentary about Joshua Harris’ best-selling book on Christian courtship, Cardus senior research Peter Jon Mitchell regrets that it misses the abundant wisdom of Scripture.
Harris’ book, published in 1997, with its marketable title landed on fertile ground previously tilled by Christian sexual abstinence and purity campaigns, which Harris suggests influenced his writing Harris warns that popular Christian approaches to partnership, sex, and marriage are often construct...
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The Graying Of Cohabitation
Peter Stockland with Peter Jon Mitchell
June 21, 2018
Senior Researcher Peter Jon Mitchell talks with Convivium about a new report from Cardus Family on data showing a doubling of the number of middle-aged Canadians choosing to cohabitate rather than marry. There are risks, Mitchell says, for the couples and for society.
Convivium: What needs to be done then to help people understand that the choice between cohabitation and marriage can have a real effect on their lives in the years when they need to be preparing for old age? In other words, if you're still doing this when you're in your 50s, tick, tick, tick, right...
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Speaking Up for Marriage
Peter Jon Mitchell and Andrea Mrozek
May 14, 2018
New poll numbers show more than half of Canadians no longer believe marriage is necessary. But as Cardus Family’s Peter Jon Mitchell and Andrea Mrozek point out, leading Canadian voices backed by impeccable social science research are debunking that destructive myth.
Given the expert testimony and the availability of scholarship on the matter, what the survey results show is that a majority of Canadians hold views about marriage that are at odds with the research In spite of the fact that marriage is still the most stable relationship choice, we hesitate to enco...
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The Social Assistance of Marriage
Peter Jon Mitchell with Peter Stockland
April 4, 2018
In a new study on social assistance and marital decision-making in Canada, Cardus Family senior researcher Peter Jon Mitchell finds growing acceptance that getting married is a sound way to avoid going on the dole.
Peter Jon Mitchell: The report is a review of the literature for understanding the research environment on a particular question, which is, "Does social assistance in Canada influence family formation, particularly marital formation?" The idea is the review will actually lead into a much larger proj...
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Unmarried With Children
Peter Stockland, with Andrea Mrozek, Peter Jon Mitchell
February 20, 2018
Cardus Family has unearthed a startling new statistic: fewer than two-thirds of Canadian children now have married parents. Program director Andrea Mrozek and senior researcher Peter Jon Mitchell tell Convivium how they discovered the number, and what it means for Canadian family life.
PJM: The original (2017 census) report did look at the living arrangements of children, and broke down intact and non-intact families, but it didn't actually look at marriage: which kids were in married parent families, which kids were in common law families It’s a trend that’s been followed since 1...
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Forgetting To Always Remember
Peter Jon Mitchell
June 8, 2017
Cardus Senior Researcher Peter Jon Mitchell reflects on modern western society's discomfort with death and grief and the role that memory, faith, and religious communities can serve in the experience of public mourning.
He confides that after a recent loss in his own social circle, “I realized that I hadn’t the slightest idea how to talk to my children – or anyone – about death The rich confusion around death is evident, Wright argues, in that most people rarely consider how the variety of beliefs about life after ...
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Research Before Your Romantic Search
Andrea Mrozek and Peter Jon Mitchell
February 14, 2017
Do modern dating conventions preclude thriving marriages? Short answer? Yes. Here are three tips from the research for singles to better prepare for marriage this Valentine’s.
From a 2014 research survey, men and women who had sex only with their future spouse before marriage report higher levels of marital happiness Couples whose relationship began with a hook up report lower levels of marital happiness, perhaps because the sexual connection led the couple to overlook ot...