Canadian Forces Base Valcartier is located 25 km west of Quebec City. CFB Valcartier was originally erected as a military camp in August of 1914 as part of the mobilization of a Canadian Expeditionary Force at the onset of the Great War. Due to its proximity to the port of Quebec it became the largest military camp on Canadian soil, including some 32,000 men and 8,000 horses.
Currently CFB Valcartier is home for 5 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, which consists of 5e Régiment d'artillerie légère du Canada (5 RALC), the 12e Régiment blindé du Canada (12 RBC), 5e Régiment du génie de combat (a combat engineering regiment), the three Regular Force battalions of Le Royal 22e Régiment, 5 Service Batallion, and 5 Military Police Platoon. The base also houses a helicopter squadron, communications squadron and other support units.
It's doubtful the 1900 troops from CFB Valcartier headed for Afghanistan later this month would pelt Defence Minister David Pratt with a rain of litter as he delivers a send-off pep talk.
Hughes's virulent anti-French ravings were in no small measure responsible for whipping up resentment of French-Canadians outside Quebec, and mobilizing opposition to the war within the province that led to the conscription crisis of 1917 and left the seeds for a similar rift over the draft in 1944.
The military tent city at Valcartier was abandoned after the war but was reactivated in 1930, and with the help of Depression make-work funds, workers paid 20 cents a day erected the first permanent buildings.
A contingent of 76 soldiers from Canadian Forces Base Valcartier left Monday evening for a dangerous mission of several months in Kandahar, the scene of violent clashes with insurgent Taliban fighters.
The soldiers are not the first contingent from CFB Valcartier to go to Afghanistan.
In August, 39 soldiers left the base to help train the Afghan army and are due to return home in March.
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