Sentence:  The major concern of most of the <WSD>premiers</WSD> who attended the 1887 conference was, as Macdonald well understood, to put pressure upoon Ottawa to amend the B.N.A. Act to increase the subsidies paid to the provinces by tying them to current population levels rather than those of 1860. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  The government leader in parliament and leader of cabinet in a state or provincial parliamentary system.