A pharmacist who grew up in Yorkton will be sworn in as premier of the Yukon this Saturday.
Darrell Pasloski, 50, was elected leader of the territory's ruling Yukon Party on May 28. He replaces the party's retiring head and the Yukon's longest-serving premier, Dennis Fentie.
Both Pasloski and his wife Tammie grew up in Yorkton, where they were graduates of YRHS.
"My parents still live in Yorkton, as do my wife's parents," Pasloski told Yorkton This Week.
After graduation, Pasloski earned a degree in pharmacy at the University of Saskatchewan and spent five years in Red Deer, Alberta before returning home to Yorkton. From 1987 to 1991, he owned the city's Shopper's Drug Mart franchise.
In 1991, Pasloski and his wife moved to Whitehorse, Yukon, where they have lived ever since.
Pasloski has never held or even run for a seat in the territory's legislature. His only experience as a major political candidate was in the 2008 federal election, where he ran as a Conservative for the territory's lone seat in Ottawa. He came in second behind a Liberal incumbent.
"Then I kind of realized that there's an opportunity to really make a bigger impact on people's lives at the territorial level," Pasloski said.
He had planned to run for an MLA seat in the territorial election due to be called this fall, but saw another opportunity in the leadership race.
"I had a lot of people who talked to me about running for leadership and bringing my experiences and skill set to the table and leading a strong, team-based approach to running the territory. After a lot of consideration about that, my wife and I decided we would pursue that."
Pasloski captured the loyalty of the right-leaning party's base with a conservative, stay-the-course message in his campaign. He easily defeated his two opponents for the leadership, gathering more than 60 percent of the 1,250 votes cast.
The new leader will be sworn in as premier at the former legislative building in Dawson City on June 11. Afterwards, Pasloski says his priorities will not differ much from those of his predecessor.
"We've got a very strong resource-based economy that is going in terms of exploration and mining. We are going to continue down a path that will see us build our private sector economy as we build our population."
Pasloski hopes to make the territory less dependant on transfer payments from Ottawa by continuing to diversify the economy.
But the leader says he is also aware of the need for balance.
"We live in a beautiful place, so whatever we do in terms of our economic priorities, we have to always be watchful of our environmental concerns as well."
The coming months will be extremely busy for Pasloski as the Yukon Party unites itself, identifies candidates, and builds a platform for the coming election. The government's current mandate expires in October.
As a result, Pasloski and his wife likely won't make it back to Yorkton this summer.
"But we do come home regularly, and always look forward to that," he said.
