Crystal Martin-Lapenskie

President and CEO, Okpik Consulting

Social Service Worker, Class of 2013

2021 Premier’s Awards nominee

When Crystal Martin-Lapenskie was first pondering her choice of career, social work wasn’t the first option on her mind. Her early goal was police work. Her family knew and were friends with many RCMP officers and when she expressed interest in pursuing similar work, the officers were very encouraging. “They’d say, ‘You want to be a cop, you can be a cop right here in your community,’” she says.

But life intervened in the person of her guidance counsellor at Opeongo High School near Pembroke, who reminded her that in order to graduate from Grade 12 she would have to complete 40 hours of community service. It so happened that she was heading home for a time: “I wanted to explore. I wanted to see family, reconnect and see where it was I belonged.”

Born and raised in Sanirajak in Nunavut, Martin-Lapenskie divided her time between the North and the Ottawa Valley through her teenage years. On this trip to the Arctic, she used the opportunity to do her community hours in a local school. She functioned as a teacher’s assistant, working with students her own age who were – because of differences in education in the North – in much lower grades. She helped with their schoolwork and volunteered at a hockey camp. What she learned in the process was both distressing and inspiring.

One of the reasons her parents brought Martin-Lapenskie and her brother to the Ottawa Valley as children was because of the high rates of suicide in the North. “In our communities, we have the highest rates of suicide in all of Canada and some of the highest rates globally. When I was growing up, it wasn’t unusual to lose a loved one, whether that was a family member or a friend, to suicide. One of the reasons my parents moved us to Ontario was so my brother and I did not feel that suicide was normal. They really feared one of us would die from suicide if we remained in our community.”

While she was visiting her community, she became aware of the local toll of widespread illness – depression, anxiety, schizophrenia. She began talking to people about the problem and asking questions: What are the family services in the community? Where are the social workers, the mental health specialists?

The answers weren’t encouraging. There was income support for those in need and family services personnel – but she was told, “they only take your kids away.” Counsellors worked diligently to help people in distress but most were outsiders who often found it difficult to develop a relationship of trust with their clients. Martin-Lapenskie observed, listened to the stories of her friends and family about the situation in the community, and thought she could be part of the solution.

She returned to Ottawa and launched into social work studies at Algonquin College. It was the promise of community work that compelled her into the field, and the chance to learn both the solid curriculum and practical applications of social work within the program that made Algonquin the place to learn about it.

Her college years, she says, were some of the most difficult she had ever known. She and her husband were teen parents at the time, she was in a demanding program, and she was also working long hours to pay the bills. Juggling everything in her life at once was becoming unmanageable. Then, Martin-Lapenskie says, help arrived in the form of Shelly Waplington, a College support worker who took her in hand and provided the guidance she needed to succeed.

“Shelley just came in – this miracle came in – and she’s like, ‘I got you. Let’s figure this out together.’ She was my saving grace and a huge support as I worked to complete the program.”

After graduating, Martin-Lapenskie was hired on contract by the government of Nunavut as a community social worker. She went into the job starry-eyed, she says, thinking she was going to change the world. But instead of helping to keep children in their homes, she functioned most often as an apprehension worker. “It wasn’t a pleasant experience. There was so much mistrust in the community and so many barriers to success for children and families. It started to take a toll on my mental health.”

But the experience gave her reason to search for other ways to use her education to advocate for her people. She took a job with a private company, managing its Inuit employee training and development programs. Observing what these programs achieved, she began to understand how she could have a direct impact in the North.

“Planting the seeds of success in the minds of young people – this was the greatest aspiration for me. You know – encouraging them into skilled trades and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education, encouraging them to stay in school. There are many opportunities in the Arctic: in environmental and climate-related jobs, in industry, in working for the territorial and federal government. I saw how kids were able to connect with this and see an opportunity to look to the future.”

Advocating for the people of the North has been central to Martin-Lapenskie’s life ever since. Today, she is the President and Chief Executive Officer of her own company, Okpik Consulting, which works to support Inuit in project management and organizational capacity building. She works with organizations and municipalities to identify issues and develop and implement strategies to meet local needs.

Her company provides executive coaching, leadership development, help building business cases, program design and program evaluation, among other services. And for those new to the North, Okpik can offer Inuit cultural sensitivity training, an invaluable service for outsiders aiming to understand the business, labour and educational issues in the region, as well as traditional skills and values.

While running the business, and currently setting up a new masonry company with her husband, Martin-Lapenskie has also maintained extensive community involvement in the Ottawa Valley and the North. She is a Kamatsianiq Council Member, Tungasuvvingat Inuit, advising and guiding policies that impact Inuit children and youth in the child welfare sector in Ontario; a volunteer with the International Inuit Business Association; an advisory member of United Way East; and a member of the Renfrew County Catholic District School Board and Renfrew County District School Board Indigenous Education Advisory Councils.

And when she has time to relax and have a little fun, she and a friend have a podcast on Clubhouse that has found a surprising array of fans for their demonstrations of throat singing – MC Hammer is just one of them.

When asked to name a career highlight, Martin-Lapenskie singles out her role as the former President of the National Inuit Youth Council, and as a board member representing youth for the National Representational organization, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), protecting and advancing the rights and interests of Inuit in Canada.

“I am thrilled to be able to speak for Inuit communities as a whole,” Martin-Lapenskie says. “But there is such a demand for someone to advocate for young people. There are about 75,000 Inuit in Canada and about 70 per cent of those people are under 30. They want to participate in their communities and be part of the decision-making process. I can bring my community service perspective to the table and talk about education, including deeper understanding of traditional skills and values, and the assistance needed to keep families whole and healthy. I do this work out of passion and a deep caring for my people, whose lives I want to support and enrich any way I can.”