Premier Darrell Pasloski looked to shore up territorial priorities at the winter meeting of Canada’s premiers in Ottawa last week, taking aim at the economy, infrastructure, health care and aging.

“Really, the focus again is on the economy,” he told the Star last Friday afternoon, the day of the gathering.

Acknowledging the falling Canadian dollar and sagging commodity prices, Pasloski stressed the need for renewed investment in infrastructure, in part to stimulate regional economies.

“We’re really, in a sense, leading the way (in the Yukon),” he said.

“We’ve had some very large budgets for increasing capital infrastructure budgets.”

The Yukon’s nearly $300-million 2014/15 capital budget is the largest in territorial history. It allots, for example, more than $54 million to the new F.H. Collins Secondary School — which has ballooned roughly $15 million past its original cost projections.

Also mandated are $85 million for transportation upgrades and $48 million for highway work, with roughly $16 million set for airports and $7 million for bridges.

Down the road, a planned continuing care facility in the form of a massive, 300-bed building is slated for completion of its first phase (150 beds) in 2018 in the Whistle Bend subdivision.

Pasloski noted he would be meeting this week with federal ministers — on top of an appearance Monday on CBC television’s Power and Politics program — to discuss resource access roads and the possibility of a second fibre-optic link to the territory.

An all-Canadian fibre-optic route that would run from Dawson City to Inuvik and connect with the Mackenzie Valley fibre-optic cable now commissioned by the Northwest Territories has been tossed around as a possibility.

Pasloski, a licensed pharmacist who co-chairs the premiers’ Health Care Innovation Working Group, noted annual savings of $315 million on generic and brand name drugs.

The savings resulted from the group’s negotiations with drug companies that set maximum prices on certain generic drugs.

Meanwhile, the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance enables provinces to purchase life-saving drugs in bulk at a lower cost.

Pasloski also highlighted seniors’ care, “and really the realization that our population is aging.”

He said the health care system still runs according to priorities identified after the Second World War, when Canada had a much younger population.

The premier said expanding home services and the role of nurse practitioners and pharmacists are also agenda items for his government.

He noted several other recent government investments.

The territory announced last July it would move ahead with a $72-million Whitehorse hospital expansion, now underway.

It includes a new emergency department, shell space for more beds and an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) program — opened to patients last month.

The new Alexander Street seniors’ residence had its ribbon-cutting ceremony last November.

More controversial were the Dawson City and Watson Lake hospitals, which, at a combined cost of nearly $60 million, were over-budget and behind schedule when they opened in 2013.

Both hospitals ran initially under a traditional model of care, an approach questioned repeatedly by opposition members, who recommended a more collaborative model.

An investigation by Canada’s auditor general also highlighted significant failures in the planning process for the two hospitals and recommended that a health care needs assessment be completed to ensure the services provided aligned with the needs identified by local residents.

Labour issues were also important for Pasloski at the premiers’ conference.

Committing to develop an “apprenticeship mobility protocol” will make it easier for apprentices to move between provinces and territories while they complete their certification, he said.

As it stands, tradespeople like Red Seal carpenters, mechanics, machinists and millwrights, for example, can move from one jurisdiction to another “quite seamlessly,” the premier noted.

But apprentices in those trades attempting to do the same may not have the hours they’ve racked up in one province recognized in another.

“Let’s get rid of red tape and make things more seamless, and ultimately, that means things should cost less, and that’s one of the major focuses for people,” Pasloski said.

The Yukon government continues to expand its role in the Council of the Federation. In 2016, it will chair the council and host the premiers’ summer meeting in Whitehorse. This will be the first time a council meeting will take place in Canada’s North.

Included in the delegation travelling to Ottawa to meet federal ministers were Scott Kent, the minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and Highways and Public Works, and Health and Social Services Minister Mike Nixon.