This coat of arms was downloaded from the city's website. It is rather cluttered, but it doesn't break any fundamental rules of heraldry, and has been granted by the CHA. The rising sun in the blue chief represents the clear skies of Edmonton and the fact that it gets more sunshine per year than most Canadian cities (when it's -40ºC, it's too cold to have clouds). The winged wheel represents the position of Edmonton as a once-important centre for aviation in Canada, and the wheat sheaf symbolizes the agriculture of the province. The wavy blue line represents the North Saskatchewan river, which runs through the city (as if there are any important cities that don't have a river of some sort running through them, apart from those which are on a large body water).

The Metis trapper as the supporter on one side represents the foundation of Edmonton as a fur-trading centre, while the presence of Athena supposedly represents the presence of the University of Alberta (surely they could have found something more suitable than a -Greek- goddess whose followers never even suspected the presence of this particular continent?!). The motto on the scroll reads "Industry Integrity Progress".

The crest (which hangs down all the way behind the shield) is the mace of the Alberta provincial government, which is seated in Edmonton.

While the coat of arms is well-designed, the same CANNOT be said of the flag, which is the entire coat of arms lumped onto a banner and banded in blue. It's bad enough when some places try to design a flag which is nothing but the shield lumped onto a banner (such as that of Alberta or the Northwest Territories), but to use the entire coat of arms, shield, crest, motto, supporters AND compartment is inexcusably bad. Relatively simple flags, like that of Canada or even Nova Scotia, are easily identifiable at a glance. When you put an entire coat of arms on a flag, every detail becomes too small to be identifiable, and the flag is useless.

What the flag -should- be, is the shield (and ONLY the shield) re-dimensioned so that it fits a banner which is twice as long as it is high. Purple and blue, with a sun, a winged wheel, a wavy line and a wheat sheaf. Simple and identifiable, not cluttered and ridiculous.