You can do this with a single transistor (well, two - in a Darlington pair. But a single package).
If the rest of the circuit (whatever the switch is for) needs the 16F then I would suggest perhaps using a single transistor as I mentioned to make that an input on the PIC and remove your concerns. Although I make no claims to know a lot about ESD.
The PIC has a primary purpose other than the touch sensor. It also has some mtouch capacitive capability that I have never used so I was hoping for some guidance there.
I've use the simple copper thing in the past, it worked for me, just need to poll the pin really often. I've never destroyed a PIC for any HomeUse thing as of yet, some are installed since 4-5 years. the mTouch approach is more clean though... don't need to expose any metallic part.