MONTREAL - Quebec provincial police are using tracking dogs and seeking the public's help after the apparent kidnapping of an aide to a high-profile provincial cabinet minister.
Nancy Michaud, a 37-year-old aide to Natural Resources Minister Claude Bechard, was apparently taken from her home in Riviere-Ouelle, Que., about 120 kilometres northeast of Quebec City, some time overnight.
Her husband reported her missing when he came home around 2 a-m and found his two young children -- ages 18 months and six -- alone and asleep.
He had been working late.
More than 50 police have been called in to work the case, including detectives from squads in nearby Rimouski and Quebec City.
Provincial police Constable Claude Ross says the force initially considered it as a disappearance, but by early this morning the depth of the investigation had -- as he put it -- "transformed it into a kidnapping.''
He says they don't not believe Michaud's work had anything to do with the case and that she is not believed to have received any threats.
