The need is because Canadians have recognized that we have to be doing something about our waste right now with this generation and the next generation, so that 15 generations from now they are not having to deal with our waste.
That's the need. It's a moral obligation. Technically the waste is fine where it is right now. It can be there for hundreds of years, but then it's going to be bowled over by a glacier and spread around the continent. Along with everything else in downtown Toronto, it is going to be spread around the continent, so we need to do something about it.
The only thing we are currently doing something about on that timescale is nuclear waste, and that's because we can quantify it, it's all in one place, it's relatively small, the problem is well defined, and it scares the heck out of people. This is something you have to do to be able to advance the technology itself, in order to have that tool in the chest for climate change. So that's the need.