Scandals over sexual abuse in residential schools finally led the religious denominations in the later 1980s and 1990s to issue apologies to the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. None of the missionary bodies, however, apologised for the failure to deal with the problems earlier, even where the existence of abuse and the identity of the perpetrator had been known.

       The federal government remained curiously silent through this penitential process, even though it had been the agency with the most responsibility for establishing, financing, and supervising the system of residential schools. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops maintained that the federal government 'first and foremost' should accept responsibility for the bitter legacy of residential schools, but a representative of Indian Affairs in Ottawa deflected the suggestion with a bland assertion that the department wanted to focus on the future, rather than on past shortcomings. 'To us, it's more important to address the problem than apportion blame' was the official line.

       In January, 1998, Canada apologized to the county's Inuit and other aboriginal peoples for decades of destruction of their culture and for the abuse of native children in government-run schools, and set up a $250 million 'healing fund' to help those who suffered physical and mental abuse. Many aboriginal leaders believe this 'Band-Aid' falls far short.

       The existence of former students who hold positive memories of residential school and many others who recall it as a living hell seriously complicates a later age's ability to reach a firm, overall assessment of the problem of abuse in these institutions. Students who remember their school and former caregivers fondly find it difficult to believe the stories of those who were mistreated, and they often regard those who publicise abuse as unnecessarily smearing the memory of people whom they loved once and now revere. Conversely, for a large number of victims of school abuse, it is simply beyond their ability emotionally to accept anything but a negative judgement of residential schools. The severely damaged survivors often regard those who insist that their experience was beneficial as being liars or psychologically blinded individuals -- people who are in a state of denial about what happened to them. Sometimes there is even a tendency on the part of both sides, those with negative memories and those with positive recollections, to vilify and ridicule the other. In a pathetic sense, that emotional confrontation is also a form of abuse perpetrated indirectly by the residential school system.