Child Care

  • COVID Hope From Healthy Families

    Winnie Lui reports on research by Trinity Western sociologist Todd Martin revealing that around the world even the hardships of the pandemic have become sources of family strength.

    "Life markers give us an indication that we have moved from one configuration or stage in our family lives to another," says Todd Martin, a family researcher and Dean and Associate Professor of Sociology at Trinity Western University.

    Weddings, birth...

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  • Encouraging Faith and Family

    The issues of social isolation and loneliness in Canada are important challenges in our times, writes Cardus Executive Vice President Ray Pennings. Instead of doing away with family life and religiosity as an attempt at social progress, we should recognize the good these factors play in our lives.

    Social isolation and loneliness are some of the most important challenges of our times – one that governments alone can’t fix. Frankly, the problem is too big for the politicians. Consider some of the basic findings from a new Angus Reid Institute (ARI) stu...

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  • Ontario Budget Shifts the Child Care Debate

    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.

    The tug of war over child care funding in Canada is entering a new phase thanks largely to Ontario’s latest provincial budget. The province has announced new tax rebates for child care costs – almost irrespective of the type of care chosen.

    While the...

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  • Parent-free Nation?

    If children are doing poorly—parents need to be part of the solution

    In September, Children First Canada, an organization dedicated to raising awareness about children’s welfare and “mobilizing government, lawmakers and influencers to change the status quo” released a...

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  • Daycare Demands Diversity

    In conversation with Cardus Family program director Andrea Mrozek, Queen’s University economist Steven Lehrer says hard data debunks the political appeal of universal, uniform daycare

    Andrea Mrozek: The Governor of the Bank of Canada, Steven Poloz, recently said Quebec’s childcare model could unleash untapped labour potential in this country. He’s perhaps unfamiliar with the research about the effects of daycare on child...

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  • Unmarried With Children

    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.

    Convivium: In its latest research report, Cardus Family has made public census data showing a record low...

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  • The Empty Daycare Dilemma

    Data obtained by Cardus Family shows a shocking number of subsidized daycare spots sit empty even as the federal government, Ontario and Toronto promise billions of tax dollars to create even more.  

    This week, the Ontario government and the City of Toronto pledged increased spending for new daycare spaces. In March, the federal government promised $7.5 billion over 10 years to create additional childcare spaces nation...

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  • Parenting, Interrupted

    Just when society has settled in to the reality and implications of surrogate parenthood, the adult children of medical conception are speaking out against it, Deborah Rankin writes

    In recent years, a new group of kids arrived on the block: children cut off from their natural parents, usually their biological fathers, by so-called "intended" parents determined to build a family through third-party conception and surrogacy in the use of...

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