Did anyone else know about this?

I am currently in the midst of reading a Canadian Parliamentary Review article by former Speaker Peter Milliken.  Though just a few paragraphs into the article I was a little taken aback to find out that while in office Milliken routinely organized dinners for MPs.  According to Milliken

As Speaker of the House of Commons, I made use of a variety of tools, not all of which are found in the Chamber, to allow me opportunities to reinforce the Members’ perception that I was in office as Speaker to serve all regardless of party affiliation. For example, I instituted an ongoing series of dinners to which, in due course, every Member of the House was invited. Members from each of the parties represented in the House were invited to each dinner, always in different groupings. The effect of this was to encourage informal social contact between Members from the different parties with a view to fostering an atmosphere of greater collegiality and, by extension, greater civility in the House.

 Assuming these dinners had the effect Milliken suggests they did and given the relatively raucous nature of recent parliamentary sessions, I wonder how the last parliament would have behaved had these dinners not been held?