Most of Canada to receive emergency alert test today
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
For years, Jack Paley didn’t talk much about his military past.
The Second World War veteran, who turned 100 on Thursday, was part of an elite British group — the Special Air Service (SAS). In downtown Toronto, at the Historic Royal Canadian Military Institute, there was a procession for Paley to mark his monumental birthday.
“I made it -- how, I don't know,” Paley said with humour. "I'm just same as ever.”
Paley, with his wife of 70 years by his side, was presented with a cake that proudly noted his role within the SAS, a secretive group that until recently, even his own children knew little about.
“I used to think he was a spy as a kid — because it was very secretive and so we didn't hear a lot about it,” said Anne Ison, Paley’s daughter. “Last few years has been eye opening, humbling."
The SAS was born in the north African desert, where a young British officer in 1941 named David Stirling created a commando force — small bands of soldiers who could be parachuted in behind enemy lines and generally cause havoc.
Their motto: who dares wins.
"A lot of the work that they did is still confidential because of the nature of the work and assassinating German officers and all sorts of things like that,” Alan Bell, a former Special Air Services operator, told CTV News.
Famously, Hitler ordered that soldiers like those in the SAS were to be executed if captured.
“Oh, they shot them on the spot, yeah,” Paley said.
Still, Paley, born in England, bravely joined up and went on daring operations behind the lines in Italy and France.
"We were to train the Maquis — the French Resistance — with different weapons,” he said. “Bazookas, machine guns and mostly plastic grenades. We had to show them how to put it under the railway line."
Paley now lives in Markham, Ont., and is only the third member of the SAS to make it to 100 years old.
To this day, he’s humble about his contribution, and honoured to have it acknowledged by other vets.
“Yeah, it’s just one of those things,” he said.
With files from CTVNews.ca's Alexandra Mae Jones
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has made headlines with his recent arrival in the U.K., this time to celebrate all things Invictus. But upon the prince landing in the U.K., we have already had confirmation that King Charles III won't have time to see his youngest son during his brief visit.
An Ontario man found out that a line of credit he thought was insured actually isn't after his wife of 50 years died.
After more than a century, Boy Scouts of America is rebranding as Scouting America, another major shakeup for an organization that once proudly resisted change.
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
In March, Indonesian officials and local fishermen rescued 75 people from the overturned hull of a boat off the coast of Indonesia. Until now, little was known about why the boat capsized.
An Ontario woman said it would have been impossible to buy a house without her mother – an anecdote that animates the fact that over 17 per cent of Canadian homeowners born in the ‘90s own their property with their parents, according to a new report.
Canadian immigrants threatened by hostile regimes are urging parliamentarians to quickly pass the 'Countering Foreign Interference Act' so they can feel safe living in their adopted home.
A long-simmering feud between hip-hop superstars Drake and Kendrick Lamar reached a boiling point in recent days as the pair traded increasingly personal insults on a succession of diss tracks. Here’s a quick overview of what’s behind the ongoing beef.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.