Candy Palmater hosts a special edition of her show as part of TRANSFORM Cabaret Festival
The broadcaster-comedian is joined by Buffy Sainte-Marie, Colin Mochrie, Tom Wilson, and Keenan Simik Komaksiutiksak in the virtual variety event
Candy Palmater has been busier than ever during the pandemic.
The Cultch and Urban Ink Theatre present TRANSFORM Cabaret Festival’s The Candy Show With Candy Palmater and Friends on September 24 at 7:30 pm PDT online and via a Watch Party at the Historic Theatre.
WRITER, COMEDIAN, ACTOR, broadcaster, and public speaker Candy Palmater calls herself an extrovert, but she wasn’t always so outgoing. Born and raised in Point La Nim, New Brunswick, the member of Eel River Bar First Nation is the much-younger youngest of seven.
“As a little, little girl, I was unsocialized because all of my siblings were adults when I was born,” Palmater tells Stir in a phone interview. “I wasn’t very exposed to kids, so when I first went to school, I was so overwhelmed by all the other kids I cried every day. I wanted to stay home with my mom.
“School sports set me out of that; I was a gifted athlete, and once started playing sports I loved going. It’s hard to believe. Sometimes my family will say ‘If only we could shove you back into that shell,’” she says with a laugh.
Despite those early years where Palmater felt far removed from her comfort zone, she always knew she wanted to have a way to reach other people far and wide: “Even as young kid I remember thinking, ‘I want to be able to tell the country what I think.’
“Anytime something happens in the world…if I don’t have a microphone I feel almost hand-tied,” she says. “My first thought is, ‘I want to talk to Canada right now. I want to hold them or I want to tell them what I think about this, or suggest a way they could think about this.”
Palmater has found several ways to do just that, having hosted her own national TV program (APTN’s The Candy Show), performed on the cross-Canada comedy-club circuit, and contributed to various high-profile media outlets—to name just a few roles she has had over the years—all after earning a degree from Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, where she was the first Indigenous law student in Canada to be valedictorian of her graduating class.
Since the pandemic hit, Palmater’s schedule has only intensified. She has taken her in-demand motivational keynote addresses to the virtual realm, connecting with audiences all over Canada and beyond. As of September 20, she has resumed hosting duties on CTV’s The Social.
And at this year’s TRANSFORM Cabaret Festival, she’ll revive, for one night, her popular television show when The Candy Show With Candy Palmater and Friends streams on September 24.
For the virtual program, Palmater has gathered a powerhouse lineup, featuring Canadian rock star Tom Wilson (Junkhouse, Blackie & The Rodeo Kings, Lee Harvey Osmond), who’s also a visual artist; Whose Line Is It Anyway funny man Colin Mochrie; singer-songwriter and activist Buffy Sainte-Marie; and Two-Spirit Inuk circus performer Keenan Simik Komaksiutiksak.
All of the artists joined Palmater in studio in Toronto for the recording, save for Saint-Marie, who’s in Hawaii. (Audiences can view the show from the comfort of home or attend a Watch Party at the Cultch.) Although Palmater’s guests come from very different backgrounds, a common theme emerged during the taping.
“It’s interesting, because I came into it thinking I wanted to talk about reconciliation, but sometimes your guests have a different idea,” Palmater explains. “It just happened through interviews that every guest talked about identity.”
Keenan Simik Komaksiutiksak.
Mochrie’s only child revealed she was transgender in 2016. Wilson discovered through a random encounter with a stranger not only that was he adopted but that he is of Mohawk ancestry. Ste. Marie, a member of the Cree First Nation, was taken from her family as an infant and later adopted. One of Palmater’s beloved sisters had put her children up for adoption and never had the chance to reconnect with them before her recent passing. Then there’s Simik Komaksiutiksak’s story—and the way he communicates it—which blew Palmater away.
Tom Wilson. Photo by Jose Crespo
“This young man came on at the very end of the show and danced,” Palmater says. “When he danced, I lost it. I started to cry, and I had a hard time getting a hold of myself. When he finished dancing, I just thought ‘Canada, we have to do better.’
“I’m looking at this young Inuk man knowing how many young Indigenous [people] in general but Inuk specifically who lose themselves to huffing or who lose themselves to alcoholism, or they kill themselves—they don’t make it that far, and to watch him expressing himself through his body in such beautiful ways… It was just so gorgeous. When I interviewed him, he said ‘Dancing saved my life. I had a very hard childhood, but when I found dance, it’s what gave me a reason to live.’”
Palmater says she was raised with and surrounded by love growing up, and that’s what gave her an advantage in life. Part of the reason she has always been motivated to push herself can be attributed to witnessing her own family history: her grandmother was forced out of her house because of the Indian Act; living in the woods with her six children, including Palmater’s father, she hand-crafted items like snowshoes and baskets and sold them to white people in town to keep her family alive. Palmater’s father turned to alcohol at a young age and continued drinking while raising his first six kids.
Buffy Sainte-Marie. Photo by Matt Barnes
“My dad got sober in his 30s,” Palmater says. “He was 51 years sober when he died, and after 10 years of sobriety, in his mid- to late 40s with six grown kids, he said to my mom, ‘I want a chance to be a dad when I’m sober, to do my part.’ That’s when I was born.
“He made such a big climb, to be able to climb out of poverty and alcoholism,” she says. “I look at it as a relay race: as soon as I got the baton, all I had in my mind was ‘I gotta really take this down the road now.’”
Of all the gigs she has on the go, Palmater says that motivational speaking is one of her greatest joys. No matter whom she’s addressing in her keynote speeches, her message is the same.
“It’s really just about loving yourself, and then once you learn to love yourself you start figuring out how to love other people,” Palmater says. “I’ve found that until you reconcile with yourself, you can’t reconcile with others. Until you love yourself, you can’t love others.”
She’ll share more of her inspirational story in her memoir, Running Down a Dream, scheduled to come out next year by publisher Harper Collins.
“I’m always and forever eternally grateful for all the support I get in this country and the fact that it allows me to live the life I dreamed of as a little kid,” she says.
For more information, see https://transformcabaret.com/.
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