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Honest to Pete, it’s enough to make you tear your hair out.

First came the breaking news that the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) had launched a raid on two homes in Kingston, Ont.

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Then came word that the RCMP would hold a press briefing several hours hence at which details would be learned.

(Insert hysterical laughter from old reporter here.)

In the intervening hours, one of the two suspects, a young person under the age of 18 whose identity is automatically protected by the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was formally charged with two terrorism-related offences, one of them counselling a person to plant or detonate an explosive “or other lethal device” with the intent to cause “death or seriously bodily injury.”

Because the police essentially prevented that from happening — just as they did years ago with the so-called “Toronto 18,” whose wild-eyed plans never came to fruition either — the offence is converted to a “counselling offence that is not committed,” which carries the same sentence as does attempting to carry out the same crime.