One of my guiding themes through some of these reports is that it's taking a long time to accomplish things. I said that in 2021 when we were releasing reports around the response to the pandemic. At that time, we found that the government had not acted on things that it knew following H1N1 and SARS.
When we turn now to looking at.... I'll mention two quick reports and then get to the IT one. I would mention antimicrobial resistance commitments that the government made back in 2015. We're seeing limited progress. However, more perplexing would be knowing 24 years ago that aging IT systems are a problem and then still not having a strategy today on how to modernize the government's systems. That is concerning.
You asked me to explain the difference between modernization and transformation. They're very closely linked.
When we talk about modernization, the government defines it as moving to a better platform, a more stable platform, one with newer technologies—for example, using the cloud. That would be taking old systems—some of the systems we looked at are 20 to 60 years old—and moving them to more modern applications.
Transforming is really about the user experience. It's ensuring that there is greater access, that more people eligible for benefits can access them. It's also making it more user-friendly so that, when you try to apply for employment insurance, old age security or the Canada pension plan, it's easier to do.
Those two are essential. We're concerned about losing sight on the transformation, the user-friendly aspect, because those were some of the cutbacks that we saw during other IT programs in the public service. We want to just caution that, when you lack investment over decades in IT systems, it's going to take some time and money to modernize them, so don't forget that transforming them into better service delivery for millions of Canadians is important.