Mansbridge has received many awards and accolades for his journalistic work, including an honorary doctorate from Mount Allison University, where he served as chancellor until the end of 2017.

[1] On September 5, 2016, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation announced that Mansbridge would be stepping down as chief correspondent and anchor on July 1, 2017, after the coverage of Canada's 150th-anniversary celebrations.

[6] His father received a Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) medal for his service as a navigator aboard an Avro Lancaster bomber during World War II.

[7] After moving to Ottawa, Ontario, Mansbridge attended high school at the Glebe Collegiate Institute, but dropped out or quit before graduating Grade 12 in 1966.

[8] Following a decade of political coverage, Mansbridge had become a substitute anchor for Knowlton Nash and in 1988, CBS offered him a job as a co-anchor for a morning show.

During his tenure as anchor, he covered Canadian news stories including federal elections, party leadership conventions, the Meech Lake Accord negotiations, the Charlottetown Accord and its referendum, the 1995 Quebec referendum, floods in Manitoba in 1997, ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in 1998, the six days in September 2000 that marked the death and state funeral of Pierre Trudeau, the 2003 blackout across much of Eastern North America and the death and state funeral of Jack Layton.

He reported extensively from Normandy both 50 and then 60 years after D-Day and from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands for the fiftieth anniversary of V-E Day.

[11] In 2011, Conservative Member of Parliament, Brent Rathgeber, had questions regarding the compensation of Peter Mansbridge and other CBC personalities.

[12][13] In 2014, the CBC provided a document to the Canadian Senate Committee on Transport and Communications indicating that Peter Mansbridge earned $80,000 per year.

However, he had recently made a paid speech at the Investment Symposium organized by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), a lobby group that promotes the pro-oil-sands-development side of the debate.

[20][21] Media critics felt accepting payment from an agency actively trying to influence public policy, even if it was only as a speaking fee, could be a conflict of interest.

[34] Among his hobbies, Mansbridge collects small mementos from his travels around the world, including rocks, soil and other “sentimental” items from various prominent historical places.

[37] Mansbridge's past public support for both Jets franchises – including use of his Twitter account – is often seen as a humorous contrast to his balanced reporting style.

[38] Mansbridge had a voice cameo in the 2016 Walt Disney Animation Studios film Zootopia as "Peter Moosebridge," an anthropomorphic moose news anchor.