Hi Rob, David has given the essential answer. The permanent force engineers wore the GV pattern badge. But there was only a very small number of them. The CEF was a different legal entity than the permanent army, and officers and soldiers of the permanent force had to be seconded and legally enrolled in the CEF. The mobilized or recruited engineer troops were taken on as Canadian Engineers non-permanent, not as permanent force. Thus the only engineers entitled to the GV cypher badge were the permanent force. In 1914, the permanent force was only two fortress companies a field company and a number of detachments. By 1915, all the RCE officers had been dispatched overseas, having been seconded to the CEF or attached to British forces. Only 25 commissions were granted in the RCE during the war.
The RCE history indicates that March 15, 1915, a GO was issued making all units formed for the CEF temporary units. That would make the engineer units like the militia and thus it would only be the CE badge for newly raised sappers. Those transferred would likely continue to wear their badges.
Hope this makes sense.
(Information, in part, from Love's A Call to Arms and Kerry and McDill The History of The Corps of Royal Canadian Engineers Volume 1,)
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