Calgary Police Service members went to P.E.I. hoping to convince more officers from the Maritimes to move out west for work.

Mike Henry got his police schooling in Halifax, but — like many of his fellow graduates — he hasn't been able to get work in the Maritimes.

He went to the Atlantic Police Academy for the opportunity to pack his bags and leave.

"There's not much around the Maritimes, everybody should know that, I guess," he said.

The Calgary police force is giving policing students the opportunity to write the Alberta policing exam.

Const. Liana Deegan, the Calgary police officer leading the mission, said there's more opportunity out west.

"The west is hiring as opposed to a lot of the eastern provinces, a lot of them aren't hiring as much. It is a big undertaking for the East Coast people to come all the way so we thought at least by, giving them the opportunity to write the tests ahead, we're helping them, we're generating more interest for the province and for policing in general," she said.

Insp. Phil Strachan teaches at the Atlantic school and said his students should be prepared to travel.

"We encourage them to check it out. I mean don't leave your eggs all in one basket here in the Maritimes, look elsewhere," he said.

Strachan said many police forces in the Maritimes are fully staffed with officers from the baby boomer generation.

The Calgary Police Service is hiring 75 new police officers.