Toronto searching for new Parks and Recreation head

The Toronto sign in Nathan Phillips Square is shown at city hall in Toronto on Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Evan Buhler (Evan Buhler/The Canadian Press)

The City of Toronto is searching for a new head for its Parks & Recreation department following a sudden departure.

Howie Dayton, who headed up the department since April 2024, is no longer in his role, sources told CTV News Toronto.

The city did not comment on the change or provide any reason. Just a couple of weeks ago Dayton helped unveil a program to allow local residents to sign up early for recreation programs in some areas.

However, his departure follows a year in which the department faced criticism multiple times.

Last year, Toronto’s auditor general released a pair of damning reports on the department.

One of them revealed some parks staff were allegedly falsifying their time sheets, hanging out plazas, malls and restaurants for hours when they said they were doing maintenance work in city parks. City staff later told the audit committee that they made a “business decision” not to install GPS trackers in some of the department’s vehicles, even though doing so was relatively cheap.

Another report found that it took months for some repairs to be made to park benches and playground equipment. In some cases, city staff failed to identify any problems at all at parks where there was rusty playground equipment and holes burned through park benches.

The department was also responsible for overseeing procurement for two new electric ferries. It was revealed in July that while the cost of the ferry replacement had been budgeted at $25 million, the estimate for the purchase had ballooned to $92 million.

Some city councillors suggested at the time that the department may have been in over its head when it came to handling the large purchase.

Nevertheless, Mayor Olivia Chow’s latest budget in February handed the department a 13 per cent increase, bringing its total budget to around $599 million.

Some councillors slammed the move, but Chow’s office defended the increase at the time, saying none of the additional funds would go to the failing parts of the department, but to instead hire 478 new staff to expand existing programs.

Dayton was the director of community recreation at the city for nearly nine years before becoming the acting general manager of the Parks, Forestry and Recreation department in September 2023.

Last year he made around $268,000 in his role, according to Ontario’s public sector salary disclosure, also known as the Sunshine List.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the city’s website still listed him as head of the Parks and Recreation department.

In an email, the city said Tom Azouz will serve as the Acting General Manager of Parks and Recreation “effective while the recruitment process for the permanent GM of Parks and Recreation is underway.”

Mayor Olivia Chow’s office did not respond to an email asking if she was involved in discussions to pick a new head for the department.

Dayton declined to comment on his departure.

With files from CTV Toronto’s Natalie Johnson