In the news today: Convoy leaders to be sentenced, festival attack suspect in court

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed…

Sentencing begins for ‘Freedom Convoy’ leaders

The sentencing hearing for “Freedom Convoy” leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber is set to begin Wednesday morning, months after the two were found guilty of mischief.

Two days have been set aside for the parties to present their sentencing submissions.

The Crown is seeking a prison sentence of seven years for Lich and eight years for Barber, who was also convicted of counselling others to disobey a court order.

Lich and Barber were key figures behind the convoy protest that occupied downtown Ottawa for three weeks beginning in late January 2022 to protest vaccine mandates and other pandemic measures.

Fitness hearing for festival attack suspect

The man accused of ramming an SUV into a crowd and killing 11 people at the Vancouver Lapu Lapu Day festival is set to appear in court today, with a judge determining if he’s fit to stand trial.

RJ Aquino, the chair of festival organizer Filipino BC, says the court proceedings could prove “traumatizing” for victims and members of the Filipino community.

He says many have expressed anger and frustration since the April 26 attack and still find it difficult to cope with the tragedy almost three months later.

Thirty-year-old Adam Kai-Ji Lo faces 11 charges of second-degree murder, after police announced on Tuesday that three additional charges had been approved.

The accusations against 5 hockey players on trial

An Ontario judge is set to deliver her ruling Thursday in the case of five hockey players accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a London, Ont., hotel room seven years ago.

Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dube and Callan Foote have all pleaded not guilty to sexual assault in the June 2018 encounter, and McLeod has also pleaded not guilty to a separate charge of being a party to the offence of sexual assault.

Prosecutors argue the woman did not voluntarily consent to any of the sexual acts that took place after several team members arrived in the room, nor did the accused players take reasonable steps to confirm that she did.

The defence argues the woman initiated and actively participated in the sexual activity, and at times taunted the players to do things with her.

Carney set to visit birthplace in N.W.T.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to stop today in the town where he was born as he travels across the Northwest Territories.

Carney also spent his early childhood in Fort Smith, located south of Yellowknife along the Alberta boundary, before he moved with his family to Edmonton.

He is scheduled to talk to locals in Fort Smith about affordability and food insecurity, and discuss wildfires with community leaders, before heading to Inuvik in the territory’s northwest corner.

He is set to co-host the Inuit-Crown Partnership Committee on Thursday with Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, a national organization representing Inuit.

Canada should copy U.K., lower voting age: senator

Now that the British government has vowed to lower its voting age to 16 by the next general election, one Canadian senator says it’s past time for Canada to do the same.

The U.K. announced last week that it would lower its voting age from 18 to 16 in a bid to strengthen British democracy and restore trust in politics.

Sen. Marilou McPhedran said the issue has been her “top parliamentary priority” since she joined the Red Chamber. She said lowering the voting age to 16 would be good for democracy and that the only arguments against it are “based on stereotypes.”

McPhedran said decisions being made in Canada now will affect younger generations and that extending voting rights to younger people is “logical” and “about fairness.” She added that about a third of 16-year-olds in Canada have some form of employment and are already taxpayers.

Researchers create tool to remove AI watermarks

University of Waterloo researchers have built a tool that can quickly remove watermarks identifying content as artificially generated — and they say it proves that global efforts to combat deepfakes are most likely on the wrong track.

Academia and industry have focused on watermarking as the best way to fight deepfakes and “basically abandoned all other approaches,” said Andre Kassis, a PhD candidate in computer science who led the research.

At a White House event in 2023, the leading AI companies — including OpenAI, Meta, Google and Amazon — pledged to implement mechanisms such as watermarking to clearly identify AI-generated content.

AI companies’ systems embed a watermark, which is a hidden signature or pattern that isn’t visible to a person but can be identified by another system, Kassis explained.

—

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2025

The Canadian Press