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OSHAWA – The grandmother of the drowned boy is tearfully pouring out her heart in the hushed courtroom.

But then the respectful silence is torn by a groan.

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David Sillars — convicted of the drunk canoeing that led to the death of eight-year-old Thomas Rancourt — is lolling back in his chair as if he were watching a bad play and murmuring in disgust.

Photo by Veronica Henri / Toronto Sun

And incredibly, still in his corner and still supporting him despite the guilty verdicts that blame the impaired Sillars for taking her son into the frigid, raging Muskoka River, sits Thomas’s mother Jessica Hooper.

No wonder so much tension bristles in this sentencing hearing, even as Ontario Court Justice Peter West begins by imploring both warring sides to try and honour Thomas’s memory by moving forward.

But there is too much anger here and too much blame.

On April 7, 2017, with 1 1/2 times the legal limit of alcohol in his system as well as marijuana, Sillars took his girlfriend’s son out on a canoe on that freezing day to retrieve a blue barrel stuck on a yellow danger barrier just above High Falls in Bracebridge.