Hundreds of people gathered outside the T.G. Smith Centre on Friday afternoon for the unveiling of Steinbach's Canada 150 Mural and the ribbon cutting for the new Community Plaza.

That according to Steinbach Mayor Chris Goertzen who spoke at the event and participated in the ribbon cutting. He says the new plaza was designed to be a meeting place that will bring people together. He notes it is built right on the historic creek where 18 families originally settled Steinbach. Goertzen says it is exciting to officially open the plaza which has been in the works for some time now.

"This is an idea that came about, five years ago or six years ago and we see it open officially and it is good to see people enjoying it and strolling though. It is really a great place to meet your friends and meet your family and we are really pleased that it is finally open."

Goertzen says the mosaic nicely represents the diversity of Steinbach and is a wonderful way to help celebrate Canada's 150th birthday in 2017. He notes he wondered what the mosaic would look like with hundreds of different individual artists each painting their own tile in their own fashion but the final product is beautiful.

"What they were doing and all our varied abilities were put together and they made a beautiful mosaic, it'll be symbolic to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday next year and it is something that we will be able to enjoy for probably 50 years beyond that."

Phil Alain, with Mural Mosaic, held painting workshops at the legion in Steinbach and helped with the assembly of the mosaic. He says he has been all over Canada helping the other 150 Canadian communities with their murals. He notes each of the murals features a unique scene on a train car and when the project is complete there will be a 150 car train from across Canada.

"Other people's art is our paint brush so basically we just control things by limiting their colour pallet and it is quite fun for us because we do not know what we are going to get for paintings. It is always an adventure because no matter what we design we never get exactly what we are looking for but we get something even better in some cases."

As part of the unveiling and ribbon cutting ceremony the Elmdale Elementary Grade 3 School Choir sang the national anthem and the City of Steinbach gave out popcorn and hot chocolate.