OTTAWA — House Speaker Greg Fergus ruled that the government appears to have violated the vast powers of the Commons when it failed to surrender records on the so-called “green slush fund” so they could be turned over to the RCMP, even though the force doesn’t want them.

The Speaker’s ruling is the latest in the “unusual, novel and unprecedented” battle between MPs and the Liberal government over the extent of parliamentary privilege over thousands of unredacted records regarding Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), the government green fund that was plagued by scandal before being ordered shut down earlier this year. What is unusual is that MPs wanted the documents to share with a third party, namely the RCMP.