VANCOUVER -- British Columbia has made its biggest breakthrough so far in 10 torturous years of negotiations to reach treaties with its native people.

In the past few days, federal, provincial and native negotiators have reached agreements-in-principle covering two native groups in the province. Another group is on the verge of an agreement.

The approval of the federal and provincial cabinets is still needed before natives can vote on any deals.

A final agreement-in-principle treaty was reached earlier this year with the Snuneymuxw First Nation near the city of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island.

"Suddenly, it almost seems like we have a crescendo of agreements," one treaty source said yesterday.

The newly minted tentative deals cover six groups on Vancouver Island collectively called the Maa-nulth, and the Lheidi-T'enneh Band just north of Prince George in north-central B.C. The coastal Sliammon Band near Powell River is very close to an agreement-in-principle, the source said.

Although more negotiations and local ratification votes are required, this is the most progress made at the treaty tables so far and it shatters predictions that last year's controversial provincial referendum on treaty rights would scuttle talks.

Despite 10 years of negotiating and the spending of more than $500-million, not a single treaty has been reached in the province, except for the landmark Nisga'a agreement, which was reached outside the current process.

Sources say the key to apparent new breakthroughs is a change in attitude toward treaty negotiations by the B.C. Liberal government.

In all three cases, the province agreed to distinct native fisheries, to self-government provisions that go well beyond normal municipal powers and, even more importantly, to the principle of sharing resource revenue on native-claimed territory outside land the bands will receive in the final treaty.

All three of these positions were strongly opposed by the Liberals in opposition and in the early days of their government.

"But they [government negotiators] have become far more sophisticated now," a source said. "Their people at the table now show a much higher degree of maturity and understanding of these issues. I'm surprised."

One source speculated that the Liberals can be more flexible toward native demands than the previous NDP government could because they do not have any serious political opposition from the right.

The NDP, for instance, never felt politically powerful enough to agree to resource-based revenue sharing with native groups because of fears of a political outcry, he said.

"But for the Liberals, it's like Nixon going to China. No one on their right is going to criticize them."

More than 40 native groups are still at the treaty negotiating table, covering 120 of the province's 196 bands. Unlike other provinces, British Columbia never signed treaties with most of its first nations, meaning that virtually the entire province is subject to native land claims.

No details of the latest agreements-in-principle have been disclosed, but the Nanaimo-area tentative treaty for the 900-member Snuneymuxw band provided over 5,000 hectares of land, including 15 per cent of nearby Gabriola Island, $75-million in cash, specified fishing rights, other resource revenue and many governing powers.

Band members are expected to vote on the details next month.

The proposed deal has already drawn fire from non-native residents of Gabriola Island and Nanaimo, and from B.C. fishermen opposed to what they call "race-based" fisheries, open only to natives.

But negotiators say such compromises, particularly revenue-sharing, are necessary to reach treaties in urban areas where there are no vast tracts of empty land available to settle claims.

Earlier agreements-in-principle foundered because many natives objected to giving up so much of their ancestral lands in return for cash only. Now, the principle has been established of providing natives with revenue from these lands, even if they don't own them outright.