Robert Carman Coates PC QC (March 10, 1928 – January 12, 2016) was a Canadian politician and Cabinet minister.
In 1951 Coates received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Mount Allison University in nearby Sackville, New Brunswick.
He was appointed to the Cabinet of Brian Mulroney as Defence Minister following the Tory victory in the 1984 election.
[2] Coates's main initiative was the re-introduction of separate uniforms for the naval, land and air branches of the military.
[4] 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.