By Stephen Ewart, Calgary Herald

Ottawa, 14 May : Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver says a lot of inflammatory things - mostly about environmentalists and the oilsands - but Stephen Harper still likes him.

At least on the Facebook page Fans of Joe Oliver.

The prime minister is one of 220 people to "like" the Toronto MP who has infuriated the environmental community and political opponents as the point man in the federal Conservatives' aggressive questioning around the credibility or the motivation of oil-sands and pipeline critics.

The fact there's even a Fans of Joe Oliver page says a lot. It suggests there are a number of Critics of Joe Oliver out there, too.

Oliver has made so many headline-grabbing statements as the debates over the Keystone XL and Northern Gateway pipelines have heated up it seems hard to believe he was first elected to the House of Commons only two years ago this month.

In recent weeks alone, Oliver appeared to threaten to take the European Union to the World Trade Organization over its anti-oilsands legislation, traded insults with Al Gore, James Hanson and other climate scientists and told a Quebec newspaper "people aren't as worried as they were before about global warming of two degrees."

He subsequently backed off the WTO remark and clarified climate change is an urgent priority for government.

Oliver may be a newcomer to politics but he's a complete stranger to diplomacy.

Within a few months on the job the former investment banker made a name for himself when he pointed out how "foreign special interest groups" were helping to fund opposition in Canada to oilsands development and projects that would move heavy oil to the U.S. and Asian markets. He may have been accurate, but phrases such as "hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda" were taken - or manipulated - by his opponents to suggest the Harper government considered anyone against oilsands development as a foreign radical.

Oliver, who is 72 and had heart surgery in January, shows no signs of backing off the war of words.

He spoke to reporters last Friday in London during his trip to Europe to lobby against new fuel laws and couldn't help but say "it's pretty clear that opponents are getting desperate, hence the shrillness of their arguments, the hyperbole and the exaggeration that we're hearing."

The headline on a recent Macleans magazine blog - Joe Oliver vs. The World - seemed to sum up the state of affairs.

Given the tight reins Harper keeps on backbench MPs wishing to express opinions, it's safe to assume a cabinet minister in a key portfolio isn't out there freelancing personal opinions with billions of dollars of investment in the oil and gas industry at stake.

After his foreign radical comments, Green party leader Elizabeth May concluded Oliver had been "high-jacked by the PMO spin machine."

True or not, Oliver is undoubtedly "on message."

The Conservative government has launched an advertising campaign in the U.S. to extol Canadian oil versus overseas crude ahead of Harper's trip to New York this week in another effort to secure U.S. political support for the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to Texas.

Oliver has taken his share of shots on behalf of Harper's government over its environmental and energy policies. The rebukes from Hanson and other climate scientists ranged from "grow up" to "Neanderthal" and prompted Oliver to chastise them for "crying wolf."

To be fair, Oliver has found supporters with his willingness to take on Ottawa's critics. In addition to his Facebook "fans," there's also longtime political commentator Rex Murphy.

In the National Post last weekend, Murphy noted Oliver "at least returns fire, and deserves all praise for enduring the scorn of the enlightened when he does so."

The question becomes whether Oliver is helping or hurting the oil and gas industry by being so outspoken? There are people in the oilpatch who bemoan how Oliver has become the media's "whipping boy" over the oilsands while others warn his exuberance in championing an industry his government oversees doesn't help its credibility.

As one executive noted, if Oliver announced new pipeline safety standards, how much credibility would it have given his rah-rah support for the industry?

For everything Oliver has done to back oil and gas development there's a line between a champion and a booster. What the oil and gas industry in Canada needs, given the concern over the environmental impact of oilsands development, is for the world to believe there's rigorous governments and regulatory oversight.

The goal, ultimately, is improve market access for Canadian oil.

Oliver has expended a lot of political capital on the pipeline wars, but his image is linked to his hurling insults at oilsands critics.

After Ottawa announced its U.S. ad campaign Monday, Oliver told the Herald's Jason Fekete "we must protect and we must promote our resources."

It might help if Oliver could stick to protect and promote and lay off rebuke and reproach.

Stephen Ewart is a Calgary Herald columnist