Indigenous comedian, writer, actor, and broadcaster Candy Palmater dies

by Charlie Smith on December 25th, 2021 at 7:06 PM

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One of Canada's funniest and brightest entertainers has died on Christmas Day

Candy Palmater, creator of The Candy Show on APTN, was 53.

The cause of her death has not been made public.

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Palmater also hosted a radio show on CBC and appeared on several other CBC radio programs.

In addition, she had several acting roles and narrated the TV series Skindigenous.

But perhaps her most memorable work came on-stage doing standup comedy, where she took delight cracking jokes about those who had a problem with her weight. In these monologues, she would expose discriminatory attitudes against people based on their body size.

Palmater also received a great deal of screen time in Vancouver director Shana Myara's documentary, Well Rounded, which too aim at fat phobia. It had its local premiere at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival in August.

"You don't give a shit about my health," Palmater says at one point in the film. "My size offends you. Let's start there."

Palmater's father was Mi'kmaq and her mother was non-Indigenous. She was born in Point La Nim and worked as a lawyer before working in government and the entertainment industry.

"Well, as an overweight, gay, native lawyer, not enough jokes were being told about me, so I thought I’d be a civil servant," Palmater once told Saltscapes.com. "An Elder suggested that I could be a better tool for my community if I had some knowledge about how government works. What I’ve been able to achieve working for the community in government is much more significant than what I did as a lawyer."

The full interview is available here.

Below, you can read some of comments about Palmater's passing on social media: