TORONTO - The Opposition should be "ashamed of themselves" for questioning why flying the Canadian flag near the site of a long-running aboriginal occupation in Caledonia, Ont., is being treated as a criminal act by government agents, Community Safety Minister Rick Bartolucci said Tuesday.

Bartolucci said he will always support the actions of the Ontario Provincial Police, as should all elected politicians.

"This is the problem we have," he told the legislature. "We have people who try to incite that type of inappropriate behaviour."

The minister was responding to Halton Conservative Ted Chudleigh, who demanded to know whether flying the Canadian flag in Caledonia was considered a criminal act.

"In 2006 a man was arrested for carrying the Canadian flag down the streets of Caledonia, but when someone walked down the same street ... with a Mohawk warrior flag, he got a police escort," Chudleigh said.

Then a lawyer defending the government in a recently settled lawsuit suggested that flying the Maple Leaf near the occupation site was an act of provocation, he added.

The case involved Caledonia couple Dana Chatwell and Dave Brown, who sued the government and provincial police for $7 million for abandoning them to the lawlessness surrounding the land claim site near their home. The suit was quietly settled out of court in December for an undisclosed amount.

"He (the lawyer) wouldn't speak without instructions, so he must be speaking for you," Chudleigh said.

"Why does the McGuinty government treat flying a Canadian flag as a provocative criminal act in Ontario?"

Bartolucci fired back, saying he would "never interfere in operational matters."

"This member and every other member in this House should support those types of actions that prevent violence," he told the legislature.

"They should be supporting the OPP. That leader, that member and that side of the House should be ashamed of themselves."

The town south of Hamilton has seen violent clashes between native protesters and local residents over the four-year aboriginal occupation of a former housing development called the Douglas Creek Estates.

Homeowners and businesses near the site have also complained that provincial police aren't enforcing the law with Six Nations demonstrators. Earlier this month, a Superior Court judge gave the go-ahead to a class-action lawsuit against police and the Ontario government that alleges they broke laws in their response to the occupation.

Chudleigh said Premier Dalton McGuinty is setting a dangerous precedent by allowing government lawyers to slam flag-waving in court.

"I can't carry the Canadian flag because I might be provoking someone into doing something illegal?" he said.

"Dalton McGuinty has twisted the law and order of the province into that kind of a situation."

Attorney General and Aboriginal Affairs Minister Chris Bentley wouldn't comment on the lawyer's remarks, but said tensions have died down in Caledonia over the last three years.

"At the end of the day, you've got a 200-year-old land claim," Bentley said. "Whatever anybody else says, you can't settle it without the federal government."

Bentley recently came under Opposition fire for refusing to rule out a possible handover of the occupation site to the Six Nations. The province paid the developer about $16 million for the land, which is now held in trust.

McGuinty wouldn't rule out a handover either Tuesday.

"Any solution really does require kind of a co-operative, collaborative approach that would see both sides involved in management and use of that land in the future," he said.

A court may decide otherwise and rule that the land belongs to the Six Nations, he added.

"We're trying to avoid that frankly, by bringing the sides together and negotiating some kind of a settlement," he said.