Edmonton mourns culture's champion

The Edmonton Journal

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Walter Kaasa and culture were bound together for decades in this province. With hard work and dedication, this senior civil servant and community-minded citizen helped lay the foundation for Alberta's successful arts institutions.

Kaasa's passing last week -- he was 82 -- is a great loss for the province and particularly sad in Edmonton, a community he loved and where he was also a familiar face in local stage productions.

Kaasa started in the public service in the late 1950s, in the Social Credit culture department with a meagre $100,000 budget.

In his early years, he helped promote now familiar institutions such as the Alberta Ballet, the Edmonton Opera and the Citadel Theatre -- all of which began to take shape and thrive in the 1960s.

In the golden years of the Lougheed era, Kaasa continued his pioneering work, convincing government that culture deserved a more prominent position, said former cabinet minister Horst Schmid, responsible for culture from 1973 to 1979. "No question about it, he was one of the major people pushing culture into the mainstream."

The Tories created the first separate culture ministry in 1979 under Edmonton MLA Mary LeMessurier. Kaasa, the department's assistant deputy, shared the "great vision we had -- to go as high as the sky'' and bring the best of culture to the province and show people what was possible, LeMessurier said. During that era, he helped with expansion of libraries, museums and art galleries across the province as well as encouraging dance and theatre. The ministry's budget grew to an impressive $70 million.

For much of the 1990s in the Klein administration, culture was relegated to the back of the bus, suffering major funding cuts and losing its profile in the halls of government. It's only now just on the road to recovery with the return this year to a separate culture ministry. So there's an extra thanks to the solid work of Kaasa and his cohort in those early years: They built a solid foundation that endured through those leaner times.

Kaasa retired from the public service in 1982 but remained active in the theatre scene, playing more than 50 roles and helping productions get off the ground. Known as the grand old man of Edmonton theatre, he starred as Ebenezer Scrooge in 1991 in A Christmas Carol at the Chinook Theatre, a play that is now a mainstay of the Citadel Christmas season.

On top of that, he was a very special granddad, said granddaughter Kristen Philipson. "Truth be told, not many people had the patience or energy to do the things he did in life."

In 1996, Kaasa received the Order of Canada for his contribution to the arts along with Edmonton philanthropist John Poole, a major donor to the art gallery and concert hall who died in early 2007.

It has been tough in recent years to watch the passing of Kaasa's generation of culture and community builders: Harriet Winspear and Robert Stollery are two others who come to mind.

These generous and engaged citizens have left big shoes to fill. When the day comes that a new generation of leaders is ready to take their place, they'll consider themselves fortunate that the likes of Kaasa and company have shown the way.

© The Edmonton Journal 2008