My personal view of using Wealthsimple is a stepping stone, I've realise that I've throw away money to the banks with higher then needed MERs and Wealthsimple provide a easy way of transferring my money in and saving money now. When my portfolio is larger and I'm seeing a higher cost with them VS doing it myself I'll look into buying ETFs myself.
The lowest bank mutual fund in Canada that I've seen in from Tangerine at ~1% MER, are there ones lower?