Land surveying in Canada falls under the purview of the Surveyor-General of Canada, as I’ve said before. But surveying depends on a lot of basic measurements and calculations of measurements of the Earth to take into account when surveying, things like differing sea levels or regional variances in the Earth’s gravitational pull or its magnetic field.

The branch of applied mathematics that involve changes in the Earth’s attributes is called geodesy, or geodetics. In 1909, the Dominion Observatory was tasked with beginning a survey of geodetic information in Canada, with the Dominion Astronomer, W.F. King, as Superintendent of the Geodetic Survey of Canada. In 1916 the Survey was separated from the Observatory, and in 1923 the Superintendent was changed to the Director of the Geodetic Survey of Canada, and changed again in 1936 to the Dominion Geodesist. This title was used until 1995, when the Geodetic Survey of Canada’s name was changed to the Canadian Geodetic Survey, and the Dominion Geodesist became the Director of the Canadian Geodetic Survey.

The SGSCs/DGSCs/Dominion Geodesists/DCGSs of Canada have been:

William Frederick King CMG, 1909-16.
Noel J. Ogilvie, 1917-46.
John Leslie Rannie, 1947-51.
J.E.R. Ross, 1951-57.
J.E. Lilly, 1957-67.
L.A. Gale, 1967-74.
L.J. O’Brien, 1974-86.
George Babbage, 1987-89.
David Boal, 1989-95.
Mark Corey, 1995-96 (acting)
Cyril Penton, 1996-97 (acting)
Denis Hains (1^st time), 1997-2001.
Robert Laframboise, 2001-04.
Jean Robert Duval, 2004-05 (acting)
Stuart Salter, 2005-07 (acting)
Denis Hains (2^nd time), 2007-14.
Pierre Héroux, 2014-now (acting)