Justice Minister Peter MacKay’s office is refusing to say whether an intern working there this summer is the same person who may have participated in a surreptitious recording of Liberal MP John McKay two weeks ago.

MacKay’s director of communication has rebuffed several attempts to reach her over four business days and refused to comment outright Wednesday after the Lanark Frontenac Federal Liberal Riding Association released a list of names and a photograph that appear to link the recording to summer intern Allan Mason.

“I’m not going to comment,” said Mary Ann Dewey Plante Wednesday afternoon, just before the minister held a news conference announcing the Conservatives’ new prostitution legislation.

MacKay, for his part, said he wasn’t certain if a staffer by that name currently worked in his office.

“I’m not sure,” he said, when asked if he knew Mason, as he exited the announcement.

Mason’s name, along with those of two other men, appears on an attendance list taken by the Liberal riding association on May 25 at the Carambeck Community Centre in Carleton Place.

McKay was scheduled to talk about water policy, but was asked to have a private conversation with one of the participants after he spoke.

That participant was secretly recording McKay, and later gave the tape to CTV News.

In the recording, the participant describes himself as a pro-choice Liberal and asks what McKay thinks about Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s refusal to comment on sex-selective abortion in the wake of the leader’s announcement that the party would not be accepting anti-abortion candidates for the next election.

McKay goes on to describe Trudeau’s pro-choice edict as a “bozo eruption,” a characterization that generated headlines for days. In the CTV News piece that broke the story, the questioner was described as having “Conservative leanings.”

At the outset of the conversation, the questioner can be heard saying the conversation is private. McKay can also be heard addressing him as Trevor.

After CTV ran the story, the riding association attempted to figure out who had made the tape.

Organizers were able to identify many of the participants. Three names at the bottom of the list – Michael Oberman, Allan Mason and Trevor Stacks — couldn’t be accounted for.

During the event, organizers noticed three young men who sat together in the front row and stood out because most of the participants were older adults who were familiar in the community.

“They were the only young people at the thing,” said riding association secretary Alice Peace-Fast, when asked about the trio.

A photo of the event provided by the association — as well as a short cellphone video provided by another source — show three young men sitting in the front row.

One of them, sporting short dark hair and a thin beard, bears a resemblance to the person in Allan Mason’s Linkedin page photo.

The riding association is upset about a local policy event having been turned into an opportunity for dirty politics.

“I think what they did was deplorable,” said Peace-Fast.

“They accepted our hospitality and then they tried to trip up our guest,” she said.