'My brother has worked on a job where it's him, an ex-priest and an ex-con'

Ryan J. Lindsay's blue-collar workplace sitcom The Trades may be set in Nova Scotia, but it's his Southwestern Ontario hometown of Sarnia that really inspired it. Growing up in what's known as the "Chemical Valley" — thanks to its abundance of petrochemical plants — the trades are a way of life.

"My brothers are both tradesmen," says the series' creator and showrunner. "Tyson's a pipefitter, Kellan's a carpenter. My grandfather, he was the head of a pipefitters local for 33 years. My father was a process operator, so he was like a Homer Simpson at a control board all day… everybody in my close group of friends that I grew up with, I'd say 90 percent of them are working downriver in the refineries."

Lindsay broke the mould and left Sarnia to work in film and television in Toronto, although he's now back in Sarnia getting "immersed in the Chemical Valley lifestyle and becoming more of a subject matter expert." It was after hearing his brothers' stories at family gatherings, he says, that he realized that a petrochemical plant would make a great place for a workplace comedy. 

"I thought I had great stories coming from Toronto and working on big shows with Guillermo del Toro and David Cronenberg," he says. "I'd share these stories over Christmas dinners and Easter dinners with my family, and they'd always get trumped by my brothers' tales of adventure down at the refineries. The pranks, the jokes, the nicknames, just always had us in stitches."

Lindsay says that, initially, he was wanted the show to be both set and shot in Southwestern Ontario, but the lack of both tax incentives and experienced crew in the area meant that wasn't feasible, and once Robb Wells of Trailer Park Boys fame got on board as both star and co-producer, the move down east "just made absolute sense."

One thing that makes blue-collar workplaces such fertile ground for workplace comedy is that, compared to office jobs, the variety of potential coworkers is much greater.

"If you go into HR, or you want to be a lawyer or a dentist, you're surrounded by other dentists," he says. "That's what they've wanted to do, and they pursue that career path. In the trades, you don't know who you're working with. Corporate just puts you on a job, [and] they expect you to work together cohesively and get the job done. An example being, my brother has worked on a job where it's him, an ex-priest and an ex-con, right? That's just how it is."

While season one of The Trades took place almost entirely inside the plant, season two is a bit broader in scope, which gave Lindsay the chance to explore the characters in greater detail.

"People have their work personas and their at-home personas, [and they are] are a lot different," he says. "You have characters like Homer where he's always in conspiracy theorist mode. He can't really turn it off. But you've got other characters that, when they're outside of the workplace, they want to relax. They have their own hobbies. They have families; kids." 

Much like Trailer Park Boys, or fellow Crave hit Letterkenny, The Trades manages to both constantly find new and innovative ways of being profane, while balancing that blue streak with a real core of heart and empathy. Keeping that balance is what Lindsay calls "the question of life," but it's also something that he says really reflects what the show is about.

"You've got these guys and girls that go to work together every day and they're in hazardous environments, and they offset that with comedy and jokes and rumours and nicknames and stuff like that," he says. "And sometimes it goes too far. Sometimes you don't gel with people. It can go to blows sometimes, if you're working with somebody in that stressful environment and they're not pulling their weight or there's a conflict of personalities… But the thing I noticed about the trades is they're going to go out and have a beer with that person six hours later. Or they're going to go play pick-up hockey with them. You leave it at the door, and that's what I appreciate about the trades."

Season 2 of The Trades premieres March 14 on Crave.