TORONTO (Bloomberg) - Canadian stocks rose for a second day, helping the main index rise to the highest in a month, after the US provided $6 billion to General Motors Corp.'s (GM) finance unit, increasing efforts to keep the carmaker solvent.

Bank of Nova Scotia climbed 4.7 percent, pacing gains among lenders. Sun Life Financial Inc. added 7.4 percent, leading insurance companies higher after Great-West Lifeco Inc. closed its C$1 billion ($790.7 million) share sale. Mining stocks fell as declining bullion prices dragged down Barrick Gold Corp.

"There's still appetite for stocks," said Pierre Bernard, who helps manage about $1 billion in assets at Industrial Alliance Fund Management in Montreal. The GM aid "is helping in terms of perception,"

The Standard & Poor's/TSX Composite Index gained 2.2 percent to 8,830.72 in Toronto, paring its drop this year to 36 percent. The Canadian stock market lost 37 percent of its value in 1931 for its worst annual slide.

The main Canadian stock benchmark rose 3.9 percent yesterday. Before this week, the S&P/TSX fell 40 percent in 2008 as the energy, mining and finance shares accounting for 75 percent of its value were dragged down by a commodity slump and more than $1 trillion in global credit writedowns.

Scotiabank, Canada's third-biggest bank, gained 4.7 percent today to C$32.45, the most in a month. Toronto-Dominion Bank, the country's second-largest lender by assets, gained 4.5 percent to C$42.50. Royal Bank of Canada, the biggest, added 1.8 percent to C$35.49.

The US Treasury will purchase a $5 billion stake in GMAC and lend $1 billion to GM so the automaker can contribute to the lender's reorganisation as a bank holding company, according to a statement issued on Monday. The loan is in addition to $13.4 billion the Treasury agreed earlier this month to lend to GM and Chrysler LLC. GM and Chrysler also got C$4 billion in emergency loans from Canada on December 21.