How has the court considered pre-separation spending on school expenses?

In fact, the pre-separation pattern of spending may assist the court on the issue of reasonableness and necessity even where the expense seems relatively excessive. For example, in Winseck v. Winseck (2008), 235 O.A.C. 38 at paras. 30-31 (S.C.J.), the trial judge determined that private school expenses which seemed excessive in relation to the incomes of the parties were reasonable in the circumstances, as the respondent had insisted and the applicant had acquiesced in these expenses since before the separation. On appeal, the court determined that the fact that the expenses were a continuation of expenses the parents had funded for many years and the fact that the parents’ income had not changed all that much was sufficient to support the trial judge’s conclusion.