About 4,000 people in the Nova Scotia riding of Dartmouth-Cole Harbour got a rude awakening Thursday night – from the election campaign of Conservative candidate Wanda Webber.

The candidate's effort to reach out to voters backfired when a Calgary-based automated call system didn't factor in a three-hour time difference before sending out a pre-recorded phone pitch on Webber's behalf

Bob Bittman received Webber's recorded message at 10:45 p.m. AT.

"I wasn't too happy about it," he told CBC News. "I was watching the ball game."

The recipients of the phone blast included a cancer patient and many people who were fast asleep at the time.

Webber said her campaign team has fielded dozens of complaints.

"I'm personally very sorry," she said. "It's my voice on the tape. It's my campaign, my campaign team. Certainly it shouldn't happen again."

The Calgary company Ivrnet Inc. was hired to contact 10,000 voters in the riding. About half the calls went out early in the evening while the rest went out after 9 p.m. AT.

The mixup came down to a push of the wrong button, Webber said.

"Mountain Standard Time had been pushed as the end time, so that would have been 11 o'clock at night instead of 8 o'clock in the evening." she said. "Apparently with technology, these glitches happen."

Ivrnet Inc. has apologized to the Webber campaign and has offered a refund.

Webber said she considered using the same system to send out a recorded apology Friday morning but changed her mind.

"Under the circumstances, I don't think getting another phone call would be advisable at this time," she said.

By law, calls from telemarketers and autodialers must cease at 9:30 p.m. weekdays.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission says what happened in Dartmouth-Cole Harbour is technically a violation, but it won't act unless there is a complaint.