Toronto's main stock market index fell sharply on Monday morning following a steep sell-off in global equities and commodities on mounting fears over Europe's debt crisis and slowing global growth.

All three of the index's most heavily weighted sectors - financial, energy and materials - dived.

Royal Bank of Canada (RY.TO: Quote) dropped 1.9 percent to C$46.56, Suncor Energy (SU.TO: Quote) fell 1.3 percent to C$29.07, and, as investors cashed out of even safe-haven bullion to cover losses elsewhere, miner Goldcorp (G.TO: Quote) lost 1.3 percent to C$54.18.

With the uncertainty especially in Europe at this point, with the Greece situation - will they default, will Moody's come in and downgrade the major French banks? Those are the big questions at this point, said Serge Pepin, head of investments at BMO Investments.

Worries that Greece may default on its debt rose after senior politicians in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right coalition started talking openly about it.

Greece, meanwhile, confirmed on Monday that it had only enough cash for a few more weeks. [nL5E7KC0F1]

At 10:06 a.m. (1406 GMT), the Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index .GSPTSE was down 93.36 points, or 0.8 percent, at 12,294.18. Nine of the index's 10 sectors were lower as technology shares rose, led by Research In Motion (RIM.TO: Quote), up 1.2 percent at C$29.82.

Earlier, the TSX fell as low as 12,226.85, its weakest level since August 26.

Risk aversion was further exacerbated by the failure of the weekend's meeting of finance ministers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations to come up with any fresh proposals for boosting global growth.

We still see some strong fundamentals out there in the marketplace...but if things do worsen on an economic basis, it will impact the corporate balance sheets, it's a given, Pepin said.

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