The degree to which the impact of residential school life on Native communities accounts for social and economic problems among them today cannot be measured with any precision, but that there was such an influence seems certain.

      The verdict on the full effect of residential schools on Native identity must also be given in muted and equivocal tones. That the schools and those who authorised and ran the institutions intended them to eliminate the students' sense of Aboriginal identity is beyond doubt.

      Ironically, one of the most powerful effects of the residential school has been its role in moulding Native students into political leaders as well as defenders of the traditional culture. As has been pointed out, an astonishingly high proportion of the male leadership of Native political organisations, especially from the 1940s until the 1980s, were the products of residential schools. Andrew Paull, James Gladstone, John Tootoosis, Phil Fontaine, and Matthew Coon Come are only a few of the many former students from the inter-war period who have emerged from the residential school experience with a desire to lead and the equipment with which to play the role.

      Whatever the balance drawn on the impact of residential schools on Native peoples, the final question concerns the location of responsibility for these institutions and their consequences. Who is responsible? There were three parties to this educational experiment - Native communities, Christian churches, and the federal government. Where, ultimately, does the responsibility for it and, by implication, the obligation to deal with the consequences lie? Until the decade of the 1990s it has been the Inuit and the status Indian peoples who have had to deal with the legacy of residential schools almost totally on their own. More recently the churches have found the harsh glare of media attention focused on them, and representatives of most of the denominations that were involved in operating the schools have taken at least preliminary steps to discharge their responsibilities. But thus far, at least, the federal government has avoided accepting responsibility for the consequences (with the exception of the 1998 establishment of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation). Finally, to what degree does the populace of Canada have to accept that it is the successor and legatee of a general citizenry that played some role in the history of residential schools?