You're not alone in saying that.
There is already a big debate in the environmentalist community about it too. Nobody has done more to hold the nuclear industry's feet to the fire, so the idea of nuclear anything is "radioactive" * to many of them. (*This is where that phrase in politics & PR came from.) At the same time more environmentalists are seeing nuclear as really the only way to end reliance on carbon-fuels without running out of the energy we need.
One the one hand, nuclear does have a bad track record of disasters (the major kind that do not get better, whose damage is basically permanent), and coverups. It's always been a bigger problem than industry proponents have been willing to admit. And beyond just accidents, the industry has never yet come up with a really feasible way to deal with high-level radioactive waste. Every plan they've produced has some pretty gaping flaws, and seems to be a variant of "sticking it under the rug". The industry hid information so many years, claiming official secrecy (due to its nuclear weapons connections), that just finding out about dangers to the public was a perilous exercise, even for regulators whose job it was. So do people trust them? Nope. And in a way, they are right to be ultra-skeptical. The stakes are so high that normal human failure or corruption is intolerable.
On the other hand, if carbon fuel is going to come to and end, they have to get that electricity base-load from somewhere. Can't be coal anymore; can't even be natural gas for much longer. Renewables can provide a lot of power, but not all of it or all the time. Especially not if we need to double or triple the amount of electricity available (as some predict). People may have to accept that nuclear is that energy source. They don't like it, but GHG emissions are the biggest problem we have today, not 10000 years from now. Put enough effort and resources into engineering solutions, and they could be found.
But just look at AB and SK today: Coal plants and gas plants. People have been talking about small modular reactors, but what about large scale ones ? Where are the feds to say "to reduce the GHG emissions in AB and SK, we'll eliminate every coal and gas plant in 15 years, by building a modernized CANDU power plant in Lloydminister, and running it with Canadian-sourced uranium?" Or develop a reactor that uses thorium? Spend the money to engineer it, and then a lot of the problems that come from uranium-plutonium reactors would be nullified.
Whichever type is ultimately used, they could eliminate all of AB and SK's electricity-related GHG emissions in just a decade or two, if they got going on it right now. If they choose to do that, by all means take the safety concerns of environmentalist nuclear critics seriously, instead of dismissing it all. But as you pointed out, Canada's track record has been pretty good, and the newer reactors are designed to be much more safe than the older generations.
Expensive? Well, sure. But a government that is currently dumping $12.6 billion into TMX can probably use that money better. Or use the carbon tax money to rapidly build a clean electricity grid, with a CANDU or two if necessary. (I know you hate the CT, but to actually use that revenue for its real purpose would be better than any dividends bullshit.)
They could have this debate, for real, right now. It would be a better use of politicians' time than the pointless trolling that usually occupies Parliament (or at least the media coverage of it).
At some point soon, there is going to have to be a debate in Ontario over what to do about their existing reactors as they reach their end-of-life age.
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