Candy Palmater is a Canadian comedian and broadcaster. She was the creator and writer of her own national TV show for APTN, The Candy Show, and hosted the daily interview series The Candy Palmater Show on CBC Radio One in summer 2016. Palmater was born in 1968 in Point La Nim, New Brunswick, and grew up the youngest of seven children. She attended Dalhousie Regional High School, where she was active in sports. She currently resides in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Education
After high school, she attended Fredericton's St. Thomas University and then completed a legal secretary's course at Maritime Business College. She was inspired by the legal failures of Donald Marshall Jr. and in 1996, she went to Dalhousie University, Halifax Nova Scotia, to study Law at Schulich School of Law, where she graduated in 1999 as the valedictorian of her class. She was the first Aboriginal law student in Canada to be valedictorian of her graduating class, and was president of the Dalhousie Aboriginal Law Students Association. She got a job with the now defunct Law firm Patterson Palmer Hunt Murphy, but soon realized she didn't want to practice corporate law, and subsequently left her job and began working for the Nova Scotia Department of Education.
Career
She was a regular contributor to CBC Radio's Definitely Not the Opera and an interim host of Q, and was a columnist for the now defunct Halifax newspaper The Daily News, where she wrote a series for Mi'kmaq History Month. CBC Newsworld did a one-hour documentary on Palmater titled The Candy Show. It was produced and directed by Mary Munson in Halifax. The executive producer was Renée Pellerin. The Candy Show is also the title of a regular comedy series which airs on APTN. Palmater is also a regular performer on the comedy club circuit in Canada, as well as a frequent host of entertainment galas and events. Palmater produced her first film, Building Legends: The Mi'Kmaq Canoe Project, in 2011. As an actor, she has had roles in the television series Forgive Me, Sex & Violence, and Trailer Park Boys. Her daily CBC Radio summer series The Candy Palmater Show debuted on May 30, 2016. Following the end of that show's run, she did another stint as guest host of Q for several weeks in September and October, between the departure of Shad and the debut of permanent new host Tom Power. In 2017 she was a panelist on Canada Reads, advocating for Katherena Vermette's novel The Break.
