Candy Palmater

In 2017, Palmater was presented the Bonham Centre Award from The Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto, for her contributions to the advancement and education of issues around sexual identification.

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.

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.

She was nominated for an East Coast Music Award for Media Person of the Year in 2013. The Candy Show was also nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Direction in a Variety or Comedy TV Series, for director Trevor Grant. For her work on the television series Forgive Me, she was nominated for an ACTRA Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Palmater produced her first film, Building Legends: The Mi'Kmaq Canoe Project, in 2011.

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.

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.