The last formal meeting of the Privy Council was held in 1981 to give formal consent to the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer. According to a contemporary newspaper account, the conference, on 27 March at Rideau Hall, consisted of 12 individuals, including Chief Justice Bora Laskin, who presided over the meeting, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, several cabinet ministers, Stanley Knowles of the New Democratic Party, and Alvin Hamilton of the Progressive Conservative Party. There, all gathered were informed of the prince's engagement, nodded their approval, and then toasted their decision with champagne. David Brown, an official in the machinery of government section of the Privy Council Office, told "The Globe and Mail" that, had the Privy Council rejected the Prince of Wales' engagement, none of his children would have been considered legitimate heirs to the Canadian throne, thus setting up a potential break in the unified link to the crown of each of the Commonwealth realms, in contradiction to the conventional "treaty" laid out in the preamble to the 1931 Statute of Westminster. Following the announcement of the Prince of Wales' engagement to Camilla Parker-Bowles, however, the Department of Justice Canada announced its decision that the Privy Council was not required to meet to give its consent to the marriage, as the union would not result in offspring that would impact the succession to the throne. Prince Charles was himself appointed to the council on 18 May 2014.