It's working okay for one billion people already.

Chinese economic restrictions generally tilt toward keeping the majority of capital flowing throughout China and strategic investments abroad. They are definitely not geared to someone who wants to start an English-learning school and repatriate earnings back to the UK or wherever. WeChat/Alipay support this - you can't really spend that money anywhere except in China.

All the malls in Toronto take WeChat and Alipay.

Vancouver too -- go figure; very common in Richmond, reasonably common elsewhere.

And I've seen it a few places in Edmonton and Calgary.

Unfortunately using those apps overseas only appears to work for Chinese citizens. If you are a foreigner who lives, works and pays taxes in China, you still cannot pay overseas with the apps that work perfectly fine here. Getting money out of the country requires several hours of faffing about at the bank.