Toronto’s city government has entered the garbage-time phase of its term.

I mean, the executive committee passed a recommendation on Monday to explore accepting Bitcoin — if that isn’t a circus play made to run out the clock at a point when nothing of consequence is left to happen, I don’t know what is.

Garbage time. If you watch any sports, you’ll know that term applies to the final few minutes of a game when the result is no longer in question and there’s nothing left to do but wait for the buzzer. Teams often sit their stars on the bench, play seldom-used substitutes, and often don’t even bother trying to make plays — why risk injury? There’s no point. It’s garbage.

The government equivalent has settled in at city hall, with only, let’s see, well, eight months left until the next election. That seems like a long time to write off, especially when the election campaign doesn’t even kick off until May 1. But here we are.

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The city could be doing serious work. In his very last report as City Manager Peter Wallace put forward a grim picture of the city’s financial future to the executive committee on Monday that calls for tough decisions. As he’s done before, Wallace explained a choice must be made about the city’s path — they can either hike taxes and revenue substantially to carry on city building efforts or they can massively scale back what they are trying to accomplish. The status quo, he said, is not an option — it leads directly to a $1.42 billion deficit within five years, in a city that is legally not allowed to run a deficit.

So! This is actually an interesting discussion, and a core one to the city’s mission and approach. It will be a defining discussion. We shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood and we took... well, on Monday, we took a knee. We’re not ready to go down either one of those roads yet.

That is, the executive committee put off any action or decision or even full council discussion about that report’s implications until next year, and the next term of council.

After the election, you see. Hang tight, folks, just four full months of meetings left until the pre-election summer break. About 18 long-winded weeks of putting off until later what could be done today.

On the bright side, this decision to leave the decision to the newly elected council means, at least potentially, that this defining discussion could form the battlefield for the election, if we want it to. It would be a good one, actually. Because the question mirrors the one you hope will be underneath our voting decisions: what kind of city do we want to live in?

Of course, as of today it appears the expected main event of the election card — the mayoral race — may be a bit underwhelming. No high-profile challengers have yet emerged to challenge the current champion, so the fight might wind up being John Tory vs. his own shadow. Tory is an able talker. He certainly has the wind in his lungs to fill all the available debate hours himself, and his typical sentences are full of enough clauses and sub-clauses and qualified qualifications that he may even be able to debate both sides of the question. But a man vs. himself conflict doesn’t exactly set the stage for the electoral clash of municipal visions we all might hope for.

A lot can happen. People are still trying to cajole city councillors like Josh Matlow, Kristyn Wong-Tam and Mike Layton into running from Tory’s left. From the populist right, Giorgio Mammoliti announced Tuesday he was throwing his whole self into a race for a provincial seat, but he’s one loss away from throwing his whole self into the mayor’s race (before, one assumes, hokey-pokeying his way back to his council seat in the fall, as has been his custom). An activist named Sarah Climenhaga has announced she plans to run, and activist and journalist Desmond Cole has said he is considering it. Someone could catch lightning in a bottle and change the expected contours of the race. It’s possible. But today it doesn’t appear too likely.

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But even if the mayor’s race winds up being a snooze, the election debate could still be defining for the city. There are three new council seats being created, and with vacancies, people retiring, and longtime councillors running provincially, we could be looking at a dozen or more truly competitive council races. This is a legislative body that has often recently decided controversial decisions by a margin of less than 10 votes. Even if Tory returns, the council majority he’ll be leading will have to answer to the big questions with him (or for him)—and the makeup of that majority is a big open question itself.

During this garbage time non-recess where the existing term of council is basically over and the election has yet to begin, there is time to ponder the big questions about the future. For the likely candidates, and for the voters, too.

Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca. Follow: @thekeenanwire

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