VANCOUVER, British Columbia - There's no way the private security industry can meet the demands from either Olympic organizers or the Royal Candaian Mounted Police for help during the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, industry professionals say.

Both Vancouver's Olympic Organizing committee and the Integrated Security Unit in charge of policing the Games are seeking private security firms, as well as existing institutions that want to beef up their own security.

It means the already-stressed industry simply can't keep up.

''There are very competent people who are part of the (Olympic) planning process,'' said Leo Knight, senior vice-president of Paladin Security, a Vancouver-based private security firm.

''But they aren't listening to the industry and they aren't in touch with reality.''

Knight and others say unless there are drastic changes to legislation which would allow workers from outside Canada to be brought in to help during the Games, there won't be enough security guards to back-stop policing in 2010 based on what the Integrated Security Unit and Olympic organizers say they are looking for.

The unit - made up of RCMP, the Vancouver Police, the West Vancouver police, National Defence and Canada's spy agency - took the unusual step of issuing an ''industry input notice'' last month, in advance of putting out the formal contract tender for security personnel which will be issued in a few weeks.

In the notice, they asked the industry to weigh in on the feasibility of one company being able to provide as much as 900,000 hours of manpower, working 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the three months around the Games.

That works out to about 5,000 security guards to fill the unit's needs alone.

There are only 8,600 licensed guards in B.C., according to the provincial government.

The notice doesn't specify that the guards must be from B.C., but industry officials pointed out that housing and transportation requirements would make it extremely difficult for agencies to bring workers in from elsewhere.

Provincial licensing requirements that security guards be Canadian residents also preclude them from going south of the border or overseas - like companies in Alberta can - to recruit additional workers.

''Not one company will be able to supply because these people already have jobs, they're already protecting the library, the mall or whatever it might be,'' said Tim Grose, vice-president of business development for Total Security Management Services Inc., a Toronto-based firm.