OTTAWA - Eight fewer departments and agencies are being asked to slash their budgets at least 15 per cent over the next three years, a move one economist says shows Ottawa's cost cutting exercise was not "thought through."

Earlier this year, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne directed most ministers to find ways to cut their departments' program spending by 15 per cent over the next three years.

At the time, the government said National Defence, the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency would have lower savings targets of two per cent.

The federal budget proposes to add eight more departments to that list.

They include the Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, Indigenous Services Canada and the Department for Women and Gender Equality.

The other govern

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