George Harvey, the Mayor of Delta, is ringing the alarm after safety concerns were raised by the fired contractor of the Massey Tunnel replacement project.

In an interview with CityNews, he calls on the provincial government to answer questions about whether building a new tunnel next to the old one is safe for the existing crossing.

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“We have always been very worried about risk to that tunnel while construction, whether it was a bridge or a tunnel, was happening,” he said.

Harvie calls the concerns raised by the previous contractor about building a new tunnel next to the existing crossing very serious.

“The reason that the province cancelled the contracts with the [Cross Fraser Partnership] was the fact that they could not find a solution to the possibility of risk to the existing tunnel by constructing a new tunnel next to it, and it actually has to be buried a lot deeper than the current tunnel,” the mayor explained.

“Then you have all these problems with regards to possible slippage.”

Harvey says that he wants provincial officials to appear in an open session at Delta City Council to explain themselves.

“If we lose the connection, we have serious, serious problems in the Lower Mainland with regards to not having a crossing in that location.”

Harvie says that the constant delays in the project are not acceptable for people who commute through the 67-year-old tunnel every day.

“I’ve gone through the tunnel just the other day. It was awful, and it was awful coming back. I used to have to do it daily when I worked for the City of Burnaby many years ago, and it’s the same type of congestion. We actually have staff that live in Vancouver and came to work for us in Delta. They didn’t last much more than six months.”

He adds that while he once believed the project would be completed around 2030, that vision is now “extremely clouded.”

Earlier this month, the B.C. government announced that it had terminated its deal with a design-build consortium known as Cross Fraser Partnership (CFP).

The province had been working with the CFP under a design and early works agreement since September 2024, and while the ministry says there has been “significant progress,” the government was exercising a termination option.

Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth says B.C. had received “good value from the contractor” and made steady progress with design, but the province was taking the project back to a competitive process to seek the best value for taxpayers.

– With files from Michael Williams.