Liberal leadership candidate Joe Volpe will respond Monday to allegations his team improperly signed up some new Liberal Party members in Quebec, The Canadian Press is reporting.

However, it isn't known whether he'll end his campaign or fire back at those he sees as his detractors.

Corey Hobbs, a spokesman for Volpe, refused to comment on Saturday.

However, CP reports that some Volpe insiders feel their team has been targeted by the campaign team of Michael Ignatieff, which includes several high-profile Quebec Liberals.

They say the Toronto Star -- which broke the story in a report on Saturday -- reported it obtained membership lists of the Quebec wing of the party, yet those membership lists are supposed to be confidential.

The insiders argue the Star only appeared to investigate party members of Italian heritage (Volpe is an immigrant from Italy) while ignoring the recruiting practices of other campaign teams.

The problems

The Star reported that dozens of people in Montreal, including some who are no longer living, have been signed up improperly for federal Liberal party memberships.

Toronto MP Volpe's campaign team was named in the investigation as allegedly for paying for the memberships of nine people.

Hobbs said the campaign had not purchased any memberships. "Absolutely not," he said.

Volpe's campaign team signed up 4,352 members in Quebec before the July cut-off date.

People who are signed up as party members before the cut-off are eligible to help select delegates to attend the Liberal leadership convention in November.

According to the report, Quebecers were sent membership cards and letters which urged them to vote in delegate-selection meetings next weekend.

The Star investigation turned up 75 problems with the lists of new members for the Montreal area.

In fact, only a couple of dozen of the people who were called said they were members in good standing who had paid their own membership fee.

Liberal party rules stipulate members must pay their own membership fees, and in most cases, they had not done so, the investigation found.

Some didn't remember ever being called or receiving anything in the mail, others weren't Liberals and most hadn't paid the fee or signed anything.

Two of the men on the list were deceased and one woman received a membership card with her maiden name from 27 years ago.

Others told the Star they had received phone calls but didn't know who had called them. A Volpe campaign insider told the newspaper there were instructions that the candidate's name not be mentioned in phone conversations.

The federal Liberal party is investigating an official complaint against the Volpe campaign forwarded by riding officials in Papineau -- a fact confirmed by Steven MacKinnon, the Liberal party's national director.

"Very simply, new members must join the party and have done so with their own money," he said.

The Papineau riding officials also took a hard look at a list of members signed up by Ignatieff's camp, but no irregularities were found on that list, the Star said.

Volpe, approached by the Star at his Toronto home, refused to comment.

Nick Discepola, the key official in Volpe's recruitment drive in Quebec and the chair of his national campaign, did not return the paper's phone calls.

Montreal MP Stephane Dion, the only leadership contender from Quebec, said he knew there were concerns about party memberships but said he trusted Volpe.

"I'm aware of the concerns. I don't have the answers. It will be for the camp of Mr. Volpe to answer. I have confidence in Joe's honesty," he told the Star.

Political analyst John Parisella told CTV Montreal he didn't think there was bad faith on Volpe's part, "but I do believe that there was a certain amount of incompetence or lack of control within his own campaign and that always reflects badly on the leadership candidate."

This isn't the first time Volpe's campaign has been embroiled in controversy. Jim Karygiannis, a controversial Toronto MP who was chairing Volpe's national campaign, left the team earlier over Volpe's support for Israel's bombardment of Lebanon. However, it was unclear whether he was fired or quit of his own accord.

And B.C. MP Sukh Dhaliwal left last spring after it was revealed Volpe had accepted $108,000 in donations from a number of current and former pharmaceutical executives, their spouses and their children, including 11-year-old twins.

Volpe eventually returned $27,000 received from five donors under the age of 18. 

With a report from CTV Montreal's Paul Karwatsky and files from The Canadian Press