EXIT INTERVIEW — SUSANNAH GOSHKO's final week in Ottawa was a relatable one. Goshko, the outgoing British high commissioner, invited Playbook into her Rockcliffe Park residence for an exit interview. The books were off the shelves. The sitting room was a bit echoey. With Goshko heading to Mexico, where she sets her sights on the British ambassadorship made abruptly vacant this year, her Crichton Lodge digs await her successor, ROBERT TINLINE. Before Goshko departed leafy Ottawa for sunny Mexico City, she shared parting thoughts. — Origin story: "Your minister for innovation is the reason I'm here," Goshko says. "FRANÇOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE was foreign minister at the point that I worked for our foreign minister [DOMINIC RAAB], and he was so energetic." Champagne and Raab represented "completely different sides of the political spectrum," she says. But they focused on the same question: "What can we get done?" — Below-zero tradeoffs: Goshko applied for the job, despite the climate of this particular G7 capital. "I have actually really enjoyed your winters. They terrified me before coming here," she says. "I basically picked my postings to date on the basis of wanting to feel warm. And Canada was obviously a massive flaw in that plan." The Mexico appointment was only public the day after our interview, but there was our biggest hint of her next posting. — It's a big country: The epic scale of Canada's geography turns Goshko cerebral. "What does it mean to live somewhere this vast, but also that could be, because of its climate, quite inhospitable — but actually, because of its people, is hugely hospitable," she muses. "I think a lot about how, as a country, you've managed to create that sense of community and hospitability, when actually, getting anywhere takes a long time, and for months of the year, if you go outside your nostril hair freezes." → Froze nose: "I tell people about that because it is so startling if you're from the U.K." — Gender balance: Asked to describe her most impactful relationships in Canada, Goshko mentions the women she encountered. "You have so many brilliant women in senior jobs," she says. "It isn't that way everywhere." Goshko namechecked Chief of the Defense Staff JENNIE CARIGNAN, national security and intelligence adviser NATHALIE DROUIN (and her predecessor, JODY THOMAS), and chief science adviser MONA NEMER. — Frayed relations: The Canada-U.K. relationship made headlines earlier this year when the Brits walked away from free-trade negotiations. Goshko downplayed the impact of the impasse on the broader bilateral relationship. "We're both countries that understand that in a negotiation, each side has to do what's right by its own citizens. And sometimes it makes sense to just draw a breath and think about things." — AI in the office: Goshko remembers a meeting in London where all the heads of mission were counseled to embrace artificial intelligence. The message: "If as diplomats, you're not using AI in your day-to-day job, then you're not doing your jobs properly." That got her thinking. "Diplomacy is fundamentally about people connecting with each other, and I don't think that AI can replace human connection," she says. "But of course, there are ways that we can use this as a tool to help us be better at things, and so on a sort of personal level, I'm grappling with, what does that look like?" — Advice for the new guy: Explore Canada, asap. "To my eternal shame, there's large parts of Canada I haven't seen," Goshko says. "I really wanted to go to the Arctic. I feel particularly strongly that to understand Canada, you probably need to have been to the Arctic. My advice to [Tinline] would be, don't think you can do things tomorrow. Get on, get out there. Four years isn't enough to see all of Canada.” We’ll send the full interview to Pro readers this morning.
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