Premier Dennis Fentie is onside with federal Finance boss Jim Flaherty over pension reform following a meeting of Canada's Finance ministers this week in Kananaskis, Alta.

Fentie, who also serves as the Yukon's Finance minister, said Wednesday he agreed that provinces, territories and Ottawa should continue to work on a three-pronged approach to addressing projected retirement income shortfalls and encouraging Canadians to save for their golden years.

"Number one, we have to improve financial literacy in educating the public on the merits of saving for retirement,” Fentie told the Star.

"And the second item of agreement amongst all jurisdictions on proceeding with a ... private sector option which allows for economies of scale to benefit those employees in smaller companies and so on.”

To date, coverage and official statements on Flaherty's private sector proposal – where employers would offer a voluntary Pooled Registered Pension Plan (PRPP) – have provided few details on the PRPP and how compulsory participation would be.

What is known is that if the proposed PRPP, which the country's Finance ministers agreed to hash over at a follow-up meeting next June, ever sees the light of day, it would at least be compulsory for employers to give workers that option.

Union leaders, including Ontario Federation of Labour president Syd Ryan, slammed the federal government's "private sector” solution and other organizations, like the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, said the PRPP does not go far enough.

"While in the estimation of the actuarial profession, the proposal, in and of itself, is not sufficient to resolve the country's retirement income issues, but it holds some promise,” reads a statement the institution issued on Monday.

When Fentie hosted the 2009 Finance ministers meeting in Whitehorse, the Canadian Labour Congress organized its own visit to the Yukon to tout the idea of modest increases to the beleaguered Canada Pension Plan (CPP).

These increased contributions to the CPP, the congress insisted, would double benefits inside of 10 years.

Whether the federal government is taking its cues on the matter from organized labour, the third pension reform prong, said Fentie, is to proceed working on "some sort of CPP enhancement.”

Alberta is strongly opposed to this idea, Quebec is signaling some resistance and Saskatchewan remains on the fence.

On the eve of the Kananaskis meeting, however, Ontario, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and British Columbia issued a joint statement calling on Ottawa to continue, "progress on a moderate expansion of CPP (in the interests of) long-term adequacy of Canada's retirement income system.”

Again, no details are available on what "moderate expansion of CPP” would entail.

Finance ministers also discussed reining in deficit spending among provinces and territories to avoid what Fentie called "creating structural deficits.”

"In other words, a commitment is on the table is to move towards balancing the books,” added Fentie.

The federal government has pledged to table a balanced budget by 2015, and all the provinces and territories, except Ontario, are on target to do the same.