Coates was first elected to the
House of Commons of Canada in the
1957 election as the
Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Cumberland,
Nova Scotia. Coates was a
backbencher during the
John Diefenbaker and
Joe Clark governments. He was appointed to the Cabinet of
Brian Mulroney as
Defence Minister following the Tory victory in the
1984 election. Coates's main initiative was the re-introduction of separate uniforms for the naval, land and air branches of the military.
Liberal Paul Hellyer had unified the
Royal Canadian Navy,
Canadian Army and
Royal Canadian Air Force into an integrated
Canadian Forces with a single uniform in 1967. Hellyer had scrapped the traditional British style uniforms and ranks of the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy and Royal Canadian Air Force. The new uniforms resembled those of the US air force. Coates resigned from the Cabinet on February 12, 1985, after it emerged that he visited several strip clubs during a trip to West Germany in November 1984. Coates did not run in the
1988 election. ==Death==