Calgary first of major Canadian Cities to elect Muslim Mayor

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I would vote for him. He said a lot of reasonable and positive statements, smart and well thought out, and he did not bash his opponents, just stated what was wrong and how to go about fixing it.
Too bad most politicians are not like him.

Unfortunately, he's shown to be like all other politicians. Tax hikes, a billion dollar per year insurance plan that we the residents of Calgary have to pay for for (For something we may not ever need according to most of our Aldermans), property tax hikes when even a two bedroom house in the "bad side" of the city costs no less than $250,000 to purchase, among so many other things. I know this thread was dead, just had to share that Nenshi is by far one of the worst Mayors we've ever had, and is the reason I choose to still not vote. He said all the right things to get elected, then turned around and made Calgary an even more expensive city to live in.

What does "progressive" actually mean? I'd be very chuffed to have Naser Khader (the Danish Muslim MP who had fellow Muslims threaten to cut him into a thousand pieces, lovely people) or any sound person from the British Muslims for Secular Democracy or even, in some cases, the Council of Ex-Muslims representing me.

I would not want Andy "Anjem" Choudary - Britain's most infamous cider drinker no less! - representing me.

See the difference?

pro·gres·sive   /prəˈgrɛsɪv/ Show Spelled[pruh-gres-iv]
adjective

1. favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, especially in political matters: a progressive mayor.
2. making progress toward better conditions; employing or advocating more enlightened or liberal ideas, new or experimental methods, etc.: a progressive community.
3. characterized by such progress, or by continuous improvement.
4. ( initial capital letter ) of or pertaining to any of the Progressive parties in politics.
5. going forward or onward; passing successively from one member of a series to the next; proceeding step by step.

But progress towards... what?!

not gonna have that argument, sorry.

So I take it we can consign the word "progressive" to that big dustbin, you know, the one absolutely full of old buzzwords like "touch base", "diversity", "exit strategy", "WMD in 45 minutes", "big society", "compassionate society" and "religion of peace"?

Imagine the world had never progressed beyond despotic superstition and the old ways of thinking. Progress towards the betterment of humanity. Its no buzzword any more than Conservative is. Conservatism inevitably fails through its very nature

I'm not really a conservative though. Conservatism is far more than something that is monolithic strand of viewpoint which says that "this is the way we've always done it and we're not changing a single point of our existence no matter what".

More than a couple of strands sum up my political viewpoint and sometimes they're contradictory: Classical liberalism; national conservatism; hard euroscepticism; civil nationalism; anti-Islamism and UK unionism.

I just want to know this: who is defining "progressive" here? Because I've seen it almost entirely used by social democrats, social liberals and socialists and the organisations that are friendly to them. I've seen projects and ideas dubbed "progressive" that I frankly thought were anything but progressive. I thought they were illiberal and backward.

So, again, progressing towards what? And in whose view is something labelled "progressive" good? Pol Pot probably thought Year Zero was progressive... the rest of the world disagreed with him. Unfortunately for the poor benighted Cambodians the rest of the world didn't happen to be running Cambodia at the time. So they perished in their thousands.

You have to make your own judgement on what is progressive or not. We'd probably agree one what are actually progressive policies. Sometimes the term is used inappropriately. Lately there is effort to associate it with radicalist change, mostly by conservative media. The media is a giant straw man generator. In a lot of ways, when it comes to social justice at least, conservatism is regressive. At least some subcategories of it. And its simple, progressing towards the betterment of humanity through reform and streamlining of the process of politics. Unfortunately like all political leanings it has its flaws

Can you cite some examples? I'd generally be quite radical conservative when it comes to law and order policy but I'm not a hanger and flogger, and I don't believe in a Megan's Law or anything like that for Britain.

The segregation of the United States for decades and decades. That was maintained and fought for tooth and nail by conservatives. The Fascist dictatorships of the early to mid 20th century were conservative/right wing in nature. The efforts by modern conservatives to curb the rights of gays and to prevent them from having marriage. The efforts to take control of women's bodies away from women. Efforts to teach bronze age and medieval superstition as science in schools beside real science... etc etc etc

A facile and--if I may say--conservative response.

Progressive politics is by no means consignable. Progressive politics is alive and well.

In short, progressivism is the political ideology that social, political and economic policy can be an engine for achieving positive change within a system. It is not equivalent to liberalism (which is the belief that the major purpose of government is to protect individual rights), because it embraces a more active purpose for government in effecting positive change.

Consider same-sex marriage:

Progressives support government initiatives to legitimate it because of their belief that it is the role of government to effect social change.
Liberals support it, because we believe that it is the role of government to extend the rights enjoyed by some members of society to all.
Libertarians are hard to pin down, of course, but generally take the view that government has no place is recognizing family relationships to begin with, and so will tend to support same-sex marriage, but not government initiatives to establish it.
Conservatives oppose it, because it represents a change from established social practice.

Consider employment discrimination:

Progressives will tend to support policies of broad application that seek to redress past inequities--such as affirmative action.
Liberals will tend to support more restrained policies, banning overt discrimination but not using social policy tools to effect affirmative change.
Libertarians will tend to support no intervention in the employer-employee relationship (leaving employers and employees to bargain with each other)
Conservatives will tend to support policies that favour the freedom of employers to unilaterally manage their workforce.

These are, of course, very, very broad generalizations--but they serve the purpose, I believe, of distinguishing broad trends towards the use of political tools by government.

You're looking for words like "social liberalism" (much I'd often disagree with the people who use it - in many cases 'social liberals' are deeply authoritarian) and/or "social democracy". Progressive is a facile word dreamt-up by marketing people.

I'm sure the Prohibition movement was thought of as being just as "progressive" as the anti-smoking totalitarians we have these days. It doesn't make it so.

I really should have put more effort into seeking out the first cigar of my life in the Canaries. One needs bad habits if only to keep one occupied.