The station went on the air as CBAF-FM on April 15, 1983. For a long time, it was the only station in Radio-Canada's FM service that didn't serve any portion of Quebec. It adopted its current calls in 1989 after Radio-Canada AM outlet CBAF-AM moved to the FM band and picked up the CBAF-FM calls.
Rebroadcasters
On February 2, 2006, the CRTC approved the CBC's application to decrease CBAL-FM's effective radiated power from 77,000 watts to 67,600 watts and by increasing the antenna height.