Altona's new flag was unveiled to the public on Wednesday.

The flag incorporates the representation of a sunflower on a sky blue background and was generated through a flag redesign contest to mark Altona's 125th anniversary.

The contest winner of that design was Edward Vincent Arcenal, one of the town's newest citizens who immigrated from The Philippines.

He says the colours of the flag have symbolic meaning about Altona as a community.

"The blue represents the peacefulness in the town, the heaven that you can see all around. It also symbolizes trust. The yellow represents the energy of the people."

Edward Vincent Arcenal

In Arcenal's submission, the bright gold sunflower image marks Altona’s status as the Sunflower Capital of Canada and its modern design symbolizes Altona as a progressive community that looks towards the future.

The ascending petals represent the economic growth of the community and are designed as slightly different shapes and are close together, to symbolize the town's cultural diversity and the importance of community.

"For three days I walked around and actually observed the people and the thing I noticed was that the people are very friendly and hospitable and all smiles. So, I based my design from that."

As part of the unveiling ceremony on Wednesday, Arcenal and Mayor Al Friesen hoisted the banner up a new flag pole in front of the Altona Civic Centre.

Arecenal was asked how it feels to see his flag alongside the Canadian and Manitoba flags.

"It feels amazing. It's sort of a mixture of excitement and happiness because I know in the future it will be flying in Altona and be used for years."

Mayor Friesen says he was impressed with how quickly Edward was able to get a sense of his new home.

"I'm very happy with it. It is fresh, it's clear and it's easy to understand and it ties in with who we aspire to be as a community and as a people."

The Celebrate Altona committee received over 30 flag design submissions for the contest and about 95% of those designs incorporated a representation of a sunflower while about two-thirds included the colour blue to signify the prairie sky.