On this episode of Global National: A historic day in Canada as Inuk leader Mary Simon is sworn in as the country’s first Indigenous governor general. Mike Le Couteur looks at Simon’s career that led to this moment and what it means for a country struggling with reconciliation.
Meanwhile, Canadian women are keeping up Team Canada’s streak of medals at the Tokyo Olympics. Crystal Goomansingh looks at how swimmer Maggie Mac Neil nabbed the country’s first gold medal of the Games in the 100-metre butterfly, while Jessica Klimkait became the first Canadian woman to medal in judo.
Despite a fast-paced effort to vaccinate as many Canadians as possible, some provinces are already seeing another uptick in COVID-19 cases due to the Delta variant. Caryn Lieberman looks at new efforts across the country to ramp plateauing vaccinations even further, as doctors brace for a potential fourth wave. And Jackson Proskow reports on how the variant is already causing chaos at hospitals in the United States, where a vast majority of patients continue to be unvaccinated Americans.
In Afghanistan, the United States and other foreign military forces are preparing to pull out of the country, as the nearly two-decade-long NATO-led mission winds down. But as Redmond Shannon explains, a UN report says that civilian casualties of violence in the country have jumped sharply amid an ongoing conflict with the Taliban.
Finally, skateboarding is already inspiring a new generation of athletes at the Tokyo Olympics, as 3 teenage girls dominate the podium at women’s skateboarding. Mike Drolet looks at how more girls are set to follow in their tracks, to change the face of a male-dominated sport.
