Her daughter, Gwen, stayed in Vancouver, and her son, Kevin, was at home just a few minutes away from his parents’ Oak Bay residence. Pons-Labelle said while it was frustrating her son couldn’t join them for Christmas because he has a roommate, it was an easy decision to keep her celebration to just herself and her husband, Fred Pons, because the family has felt the effects of a strained health care system. Pons had a surgery scheduled in March that was postponed for several months when the province cancelled non-urgent surgeries to prepare for a potential surge of COVID-19 patients. He had the operation a few months later.