Green Party of Canada Leader Elizabeth May summed things up well when she compared a recent Elections Canada ruling on climate change to denying the health consequences from inhaling cigarette smoke.

"Suppose a politician decided smoking is good for you," May tweeted, "would doctors have to register as third parties in an election to stress importance of kicking the habit?"

After many years of study, scientists reached a consensus that smoking causes cancer, heart disease, and other health problems.

Similarly, after many years of study, scientists have reached a consensus that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet. This is creating the possibility, over time, of human extinction if this problem isn't brought under control.

Elections Canada has ruled that in the pre-election period, which began on June 30, and during the election period, organizations have to register if they're going to be engaged in partisan activities and plan to spend more than $500 on advertising.

Partisan activities, according to Elections Canada, can include messages that accept the scientific reality of human-caused climate change.

Why? Because a party led by a single MP, Max Bernier, rejects the scientific consensus on this issue.

It means that registered charities may be penalized for giving a financial push to social media posts about the importance of addressing climate change, even if they're not endorsing candidates.

That's because there are heavy restrictions on them being engaged in "partisan" political activities.

The scientific reality of climate change has somehow become partisan in the Roger Rabbit world of Elections Canada.

"Elections Canada says it will decide on a case-by-case basis whether discussing the legitimacy of climate change becomes a partisan issue for third parties during the federal campaign, and only if it receives complaints," it stated.

Of course, Elections Canada will receive complaints if any of these messages are disseminated.

That's because there are groups like the CO2 Coalition, chaired by Patrick Moore and funded by the billionaire Koch and Mercer families.

This outfit claims that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is actually a good thing, notwithstanding the consensus of thousands of scientists.

The Green leader, May, has argued that Elections Canada must reconsider its position.

One of the more devastating denunciations of Election Canada came in the five-minute video below by Christo Aivalis. He's an adjunct professor of Canadian political and labour history at Queen's University.

Aivalis, also the editor of ActiveHistory.ca, says Elections Canada's position offers an incentive for Bernier's supporters to scour the Internet looking for references to climate change.

Meanwhile, a former leader of the B.C. Greens, Stuart Parker, likes to use the term "climate nihilism" to describe how the vast majority of Canadian politicians are responding to the most pressing threat facing humanity.

Climate nihilism—this notion of saying to hell with carbon budgets, the Paris Agreement, the melting of ice on Greenland, the disappearance of countless plant and animal species, and the potential extinction of human beings themselves—is deeply ingrained in our political discourse in Canada.

Climate nihilism is reflected in the ongoing provincial and federal government approvals of pipelines, LNG projects, and expansions of major airports.

Climate nihilism is on display in the many editorials and commentaries calling for more fossil-fuel infrastructure.

“I’ve said many times that there isn’t a country in the world that would find billions of barrels of oil and leave it in the ground while there is a market for it,” Justin Trudeau said in 2016 in yet another illustration of climate nihilism.

Most of us never thought we would see climate nihilism demonstrated in a ruling by Elections Canada. But now we have.

It's a strange world we live in.