Feb 2 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories from
selected Canadian newspapers. Reuters has not verified these
stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
THE GLOBE AND MAIL
** Canada is losing medium skilled jobs at an alarming rate
and the system is ill equipped to move workers to where they are
needed, including high skilled positions in other industries,
according to a new report being released on Tuesday by the CD
Howe Institute, a Toronto-based economic think tank.
In a bid to break out of a depressed market for junior
miners in general and nickel projects in particular, Royal
Nickel Corp RNX.TO announced it was acquiring a stake in Salt
Lake Mining, an Australian nickel and gold producer, as well as
all of Vancouver-based VMS Ventures Inc VMS.V , part owner of a
copper mine in Manitoba.
David Baazov, chairman and chief executive of Amaya Inc
AYA.TO , owner of the popular PokerStars brand, said on Monday
that he and an unnamed group of investors, with whom he is "in
discussions", plan to make a takeover offer for all the shares
of the company at C$21 per share, for a total valuation of about
C$2.8 billion ($2 billion).
POST
** Alberta Economic Development and Trade Minister Deron
Bilous and Energy Minister Marg McCuaig-Boyd announced a new
program on Monday, which would give companies building new
petrochemical plants a total of C$500 million ($357 million) in
royalty credits.
Canada's biggest banks are relying more heavily on
wholesale funding than their global peers, a situation that
tends to raise the risk of periodic difficulties in refinancing
debt, according to Moody's Investors Service.
A pregnant Canadian who travelled to Brazil in December
told the National Post that she is facing aborting her baby
because she has been refused testing for the Zika virus, which
the World Health Organization on Monday declared a global
emergency. = 1.4013 Canadian dollars)