Thank you, Madam Chair.
Welcome to all the witnesses. This is quite informative.
We're going into a lot of depth in the technology and also in privacy. One of the areas that I continue to struggle with still is one of the elements that was highlighted as part of the Triple A rating of Madam Arjomandi, specifically the adoption.
Let me tell you what I'm struggling with and put it into perspective. Canada has around roughly 35 million people. If we try to adopt even the lower end of the scale, which is about 60%, we would need about 21.5 million people participating in this. Assuming that we look at anyone above 15, this is probably about 100% of our adult population. In Ontario, we have about 14.5 million people, which puts it at about nine million people who should participate. Bringing it even one level lower, in York region, we have 1.2 million people, which means that about three-quarters of a million people should be participating. In Richmond Hill, we have about 200,000 plus, which means that 120,000 people should be participating.
Now, almost 20% of our population lives in the rural and remote areas. That's roughly eight million. Therefore, using that 60%, 4.5 million people should participate in that. Forget about the digital divide and the challenges that we have on being able to actually get the platform going.
I know that most of you opted out of answering this question, but I want to go back to where MP Erskine-Smith left off. Why should we not consider, in circumstances such as a pandemic, an opt-out model? Make it mandatory by the government and health organizations to adopt and use the application.
We could start with Ms. Arjomandi.