Canadian Lawyer

24 O C T O B E R 2 0 1 6 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m C R O S S E X A M I N E D DUSTIN RABIN A second chance Candy Palmater says she learned some valuable lessons in her journey from practising law to being a high-profi le comedienne By Mallory Hendry andy Palmater has a go-to joke she often uses to open her comedy routine. It goes something like this: "With a name like Candy, clearly, my parents had a vision when I was born that some day I was going to be a stripper or a hooker, and I became a lawyer so they weren't that far off," Palmater says with a laugh. "That's my little 'ba boom chhh.'" It's true — Candy is not your typical lawyer's name, but then again Palmater is not your typical lawyer. "I didn't fit the mould in many ways," she explains, giving an example of her tongue piercing people noticed when she was practising. "I always felt like I had my shoes on the wrong feet… Life as a lawyer fit me like a bad suit and it didn't take me long to figure that out." The 47-year-old Palmater has tattoos on her arms and legs; her long dress is a bold, colourful print. She is friendly and low-key, the youngest of seven children harking from the north of New Brunswick. Palmater makes her living giving speeches, and occasionally writing for award shows or other TV programs, but she has put all that on hold to tackle her latest project: The Candy Show, her afternoon program on CBC Radio One running Monday to Friday which ran this past summer. It's been a long ride to this point, but Palmater says her resilience comes from a great belief in second chances and knowing how to get up. After raising six kids in alcoholism and poverty in Point La Nim, N.B., her father got sober and her parents decided to have a so-called "redemption baby." Palmater was born into a "family of adults that showered me with love," she says. Her dad passed away 51 years sober — a great example it's never too late to make a change — and Palmater's eldest brother Billy also taught her something she's never forgotten. Palmater remembers being all dressed up in a bomber jacket and blue glitter ski boots, waiting on her first ski lesson. The first thing Billy did was push her down into the snow. "He said, 'First I'm going to teach you how to get up, because fall- ing is inevitable . . . but if you know how to get up, you'll ski without fear.' Now when I was four I thought he was talking about skiing — 18 years after his death I realize he gave me the greatest life lesson. I live life without fear, because I know how to get up." In her mid-twenties, Palmater found herself casting around for what to do next. She always had a sense of fairness, of "even- stevens," that she identified as a sense of justice. "I started thinking a lot about law because it gives a voice to people who don't have a voice," she says, noting how when the sys- C

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