she's essentially correct - she was in control of a system that, through decades of neglect, was unable to respond to a crisis of this sort, and it's a problem that existed throughout the western world. my theory is that the primary reason that china didn't get hit in their old folks homes is that life expectancy there, while rising quickly, is still much lower - they have many fewer very old people. it's a crude metric, but if you look at the lists of current oldest people, and even of oldest people of all time, china has one entry - a drastic under-representation. japan, on the other hand, is definitely over-represented.
so, for her to take personal responsibility (as per the tradition) for a systemic deficiency that was present almost throughout the industrialized world would be absurd. it would mean nothing.
after some deflection, she might end up doing it, though - as such is the power of parliamentary tradition, in canada.
regardless, it's just silly political drama. what everybody needs is to fix the systemic deficiencies, and what this government may be willing to do is likely limited. we're going to need an election to get around that, not a new minister.