The Canada Border Services Agency is in dire need of more officers.

That is according to the national president of the Customs and Immigration Union.

Mark Weber told a Commons committee Tuesday that the agency needs thousands more officers to fulfill its mandate.

“This past summer alone, at some of its busiest land border crossings, the CBSA often had little choice but to choose between properly staffing commercial operations or traveller operations,” says Weber.

Weber says some ports of entry right now could use double to triple the staff they have.

He acknowledges the CBSA is working to hire and train more officers.

“There’s an effort on the CBSA’s part now to really get through as many as possible, but it’s not nearly enough. So one of the things I think we really need to look at doing is to open a second or third training facility so that we get more recruits working out the front line,” says Weber.

The CBSA’s current training facility is located in Quebec.

Weber says it is graduating close to 600 recruits each year.

However, he says that number is barely covering attrition but not helping to increase the numbers.