On Saturday morning I went to the Westin Harbour Castle hotel in Toronto, signed in, went up the elevator and up some stairs to the very top of the building, about 400 feet up, and stepped off the edge. I was, luckily, attached to some fairly strong harnesses at the time, but that doesn’t really make it any less unnerving, because the one thing your body doesn’t want you to do when you’re on the edge of a building is jump off of it, which I did.

I did this to raise awareness of a fundraising campaign for ProAction Cops and Kids, which is an incredible charity that I became aware of in my work as an MPP. ProAction Cops and Kids has five chapters: Toronto, Durham region, Hamilton, Halton and Peel. Essentially, what it does is it allows kids who are under-resourced to connect with police officers who donate their time to run sports programs, baking programs, sailing etc., and ProAction covers all the costs of equipment and facilities. I became involved because I am so incredibly passionate about the idea of community policing and prevention-based policing, which is about building strong relationships between the community and police, particularly children.

A huge thank you to ProAction team members Jean Milligan, Michelle Marchetti and Nicole Benoit—I know you all worked incredibly hard—and to all of the officers and kids who participated in going over the edge with me on Saturday morning.