New Westman MASC offices get good reviews after six months

The new MASC offices have been received positively in the communities of Virden and Shoal Lake, according to a local reeve, the CEO and the agriculture minister.

The first six months since opening day have allowed for initial feedback to be collected, and the early results seem to be positive, CEO Jared Munro told the Sun in a recent interview. MASC is gleaning results from a variety of sources at the moment, including the feedback from staff on location.

“When you talk to staff, and ask them what clients say when they come in, they’re all just very appreciative and very happy to have the option to come into those two new service centers,” Munro said. “Staff have been warmly welcomed into the community, which has been great.”

Munro said the locations are receiving about 150 to 200 calls per month, which is on track with the average MASC office in the province. He added that the Virden location represents roughly 789,000 acres of insured farmland, and the Shoal Lake location represents roughly 844,000 acres.

He said staff at the offices are also reporting increased visitation since opening.

The two offices were re-opened in September following their closure in 2021 under the former PC government. The locations provide a space for face-to-face customer service to farmers in the area who are seeking products like insurance, lending and data.

Prior to the opening, the farmers needed to travel to urban centres like Brandon for the nearest physical location when dealing with financial matters related to their farming business. The goal of the new offices was to bring 94 per cent of MASC clients within a one-hour drive of a physical location.

Munro pointed to a figure from MASC’s annual client survey to put a metric to the positive experiences he has heard from staff. He cited that the corporation’s annual survey saw a greater number of clients report that they have proper access to products and services compared to the previous year, he said, with the share growing from 83 per cent to 90 per cent.

“To me, that’s reflective of having increased accessibility to the service centers in Virden and Shoal Lake, as being a major driver for that increase,” Munro said.

Minister of Agriculture Ron Kostyshyn also said he has heard glowing reviews from people in the areas near the new offices. He said it’s been a solid success from what he’s heard from farmers.

“They are all very happy,” Kostyshyn told the Sun. “They are very, very, very happy to have an office located in their geographic locations.”

Kostyshyn said he believes one of the big appeals of the physical office is the ability to have the more complex conversations face-to-face. That’s what people are looking for, he said.

“It’s the good old handshake and discussion. And these are things that producers are suggesting,” Kostyshyn said. “That’s the beauty of human discussion, because it generates ideas and conversation, and that means so much.”

Munro said said that clients seem to prefer to come into offices for complex matters, such as lending rather than simple transactional work.

“We’re seeing a lot more clients want to come into the office to sit down and that’s reflective of some of the feedback that we’ve had from clients. Is that, for transactional stuff, they don’t mind doing business online, but when it relates to financial matters, or trying to deal with a difficult insurance claim situation, they really want to sit down across the table from the staff at MASC.”

Munro said that the physical presence allows the company to build relationships with clients, which is a win-win.

The Shoal Lake MASC office has been received very well in the Yellowhead Municipality, said Mayor Merv Starzyk, who also lives on a farm.

“There’s definitely a local appreciation for it being here. I’ve heard that,” he said. “It could be at the coffee shop, it could be on the street. I even remember several times being at that automotive service place next door on two occasions, fellows had mentioned, ‘It sure is nice to have that thing close by.”

Starzyk said that farmers are traveling to the Shoal Lake MASC office from areas such as Inglis, Minnedosa, Oak River, Hamiota. He said the farming community has told him the MASC staff are knowledgeable and helpful.

“The response has been tremendous, and everybody seems to be happy.”

Virden Mayor Tina Williams told the Sun when the offices were announced in January 2025 that her community welcomed the addition. She said the physical location would solve a problem with accessibility.

“Not everybody has the great internet connectivity to do that kind of (business) online,” she said.

Following the successful launch of the two new offices, Kostyshyn said the government will not close the door to discussions on further locations.

The two offices were announced by Premier Wab Kinew in January of 2025 at Ag Days. Kinew at the time said it was “another step” towards fulfilling his campaign promise to spread service into rural areas. Roughly 1,600 clients were calculated to be served by the new locations in Virden and Shoal Lake, he said.

» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com