Despite a burst of progress in response to COVID-19, the government is far behind schedule in closing old data centres and replacing obsolete software, the federal auditor general reported Thursday. More than a third of even “mission-critical” applications—that could affect services like health and security—are considered to be in poor health. (The Logic)

Talking point: The government identified aging information technology as a major worry in 1999 and still has no strategy for fixing it, the audit found, despite creating a whole organization, Shared Services Canada, to attack the problem. “A lot of times IT was just thought about as ‘that thing over there,’” when it’s actually a core part of serving people, Shared Services Canada’s president Scott Jones, who is a month into the job, told The Logic. “We’re changing.” Other audits noted backlogs in processing immigration applications, the long-troubled project to overhaul antiquated software for delivering federal social benefits and a shoddy plan for combating antimicrobial-resistant germs.