Pehta Framework v1.02 remains available as the Foundation prepares its successor. The v1.5 (Canada Model) Exposure Draft is scheduled to open for consultation on 1 December 2026. Version 1.02 is nearing replacement; the December release begins consultation and does not, by itself, establish a final standard or retirement date.
Document designation: Exposure Draft · ED1-2024-1.02. Greyed-out v1.5 materials are previews and are not yet available for download or comment.
Pehta standardizes how Indigenous employment and economic participation, procurement, contributions and project benefits, relationships, equity ownership, and Community-defined outcomes are measured, evidenced, and disclosed — with Nation access behind every claim. Today those claims are published under incompatible methods, often under none, and the Nations they describe rarely see the data. Pehta fixes the file: comparable, Nation-verified, independently testable.
Pehta makes the Indigenous community-benefit file readable and challengeable. It does not assess Indigenous-rights risk, and it does not replace title, consultation, consent, or the honour of the Crown.
Three gaps stand between Indigenous impact reporting and the ability to rely on it — and no volume of narrative closes them.
Two companies can report identical facts and publish different numbers — headcount vs compensation, blended vs separated ownership, single-count vs multi-tier. Without a declared methodology, comparison is unreliable.
Most Indigenous-benefit figures cannot be re-performed by anyone outside the company — no evidence spec, no assurance criteria, no filed record. A number no one can test is a number no one should rely on.
The parties best positioned to refute a claim — the Nations it describes — are rarely shown the data behind it. A claim its subject has never seen has survived nothing.
Each gap closes against a numbered rule, not a promise — and where data capture is partial, Declared Coverage sits beside the figure rather than out of sight. Clause 5.8
The Nations named receive their own version for review, within the period the Standard requires, and may affirm, correct, or challenge it — or not respond at all. Clause 5.10 Clause 7.9
Markets read against defined benchmarks. A missing answer becomes a question.
Canadian law already attaches consequences to unreliable public claims: paragraph 74.01(1)(a) of the Competition Act prohibits materially false or misleading representations made to the public to promote a business interest.
Separately, section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 recognizes and affirms Aboriginal and treaty rights, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act provides a framework for the Government of Canada's implementation of UNDRIP — the rights-holder context in which these claims are made. Capital providers increasingly examine how Indigenous community-benefit claims are made, governed, and evidenced.
Pehta gives those examinations a consistent information benchmark. This Standard is a foundation for such assessments, not a substitute for them: it does not assess Indigenous-rights risk, and it makes no claim about the suitability of any investment. What it produces is the readable, challengeable record of community benefit and opportunity. BC17
Every contested metric decision is published with its reasoning. Three examples of where Pehta departs from what most programs do:
The same workforce can be "20% Indigenous" by headcount and 7.7% by compensation. Headcount flatters concentration in the lowest-paid roles; Pehta prohibits it as the metric basis.
Most programs are silent on joint-venture weighting; some pro-rate. Pehta prohibits ownership-percentage weighting outright: procurement measures the opportunity extended, and Nations' commercial structures are theirs to choose — not the Standard's to rank.
Every entity must state its criteria for when Nation equity is on the table — or state, on the record, that none exist. No other framework makes the absence of an answer reportable.
Every public document issued under the Framework carries exactly one status — so "kind of verified" language has nowhere to live. Separately, every issued Statement exists as three versions of one issued dataset — internal, Nation, and public. Nation versions are delivered for Nation review; validation is recorded where a Nation elects to provide it, and neither delivery nor silence is endorsement. Clause 1.5 Clause 5.10
Uses the Framework's Topics or metric definitions — in whole or in part — without being issued under the Standard. Carries a required disclaimer enumerating the Topics not addressed, metric-level discipline for every Pehta-defined figure it uses, and no conformance language of any kind.
Prepared under the Standard, addressing every mandatory Topic at its disclosed Declared Coverage, with an Entry Declaration and a year count. No conformance claim, and no external assurance required — an honest, complete first footing.
The conformance claim, available only when the testable conditions are met: full Topic coverage, complete metadata, Nation versions delivered for validation, a signed Management Assertion, the Statement filed with the Pehta Record, and the assurance evidence required for the Reporting Year.
See the data behind every claim about your Nation, challenge it on the record, and speak in your own words — at no cost, with no obligation.
What Pehta means for your Nation →Evidence-ready figures, decision-ready data, dated records of Nation relationships — and the published reasoning behind every metric you'll be asked to defend.
Adopting the Framework →Six questions that work today, a filed public record behind every conformance claim, and a materiality rationale written for your side of the table.
Use the six questions →Re-performable metrics, a defined evidence map, and alignment with CSAE 3000/3001, ISSA 5000, and CSSA 5000 as they take effect.
For assurance providers →What you'll be asked for, what no one may ever ask you for, and why full contract value always counts — in five minutes.
Where a claim does not answer these questions, that is not a gap in this Standard. It is information.
The Framework accuses no one of anything. It defines the minimum information on which Indigenous-benefit claims can responsibly be relied — and equips every reader to notice when that information is absent. Markets do the rest. This is a standard offered to the market by rights-holders — not a market standard that happens to include them. And the boundary is explicit: the Standard does not assess Indigenous-rights risk, and it does not replace title, consultation, consent, or the honour of the Crown. BC17
INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY BENEFIT DISCLOSURE