But a veteran Conservative MP and critic has already blasted his proposed changes as "dangerous" for hunters, farmers, ranchers, and aboriginal communities.

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, elected in the Toronto riding of Beaches-East York, has tabled a bill that he believes will bring Canada's animal welfare laws "into the 21st century."

A rookie Liberal MP calling for more legislative teeth to protect animals says the politics of fear shouldn't turn his private member's bill into a partisan fight.

(Photo: Nathaniel Erskine-Smith/Liberal Party)

Erskine-Smith's Bill C-246 — the Modernizing Animal Protections Act — sets out to achieve three key measures that are entirely reasonable and should win broad support, he told The Huffington Post Canada Thursday.

First, it aims to end the "cruel practice of shark finning" — where the animal's fin is removed and its body discarded back into the ocean — by banning the import of the appendages. It's estimated that 100 million sharks are killed each year because of the practice.

It would also ban the sale of cat and dog fur in Canada, as the European Union and United States have already done, and require source-fur labelling for companies.

Third, the bill seeks to amend the Criminal Code to "close loopholes" related to animal abuse, fighting, negligence, and bestiality.

Erskine-Smith, a lawyer, insists he's done his homework and is just building off previous legislation introduced to the House of Commons by Liberals and New Democrats.

"I'm not re-inventing the wheel here," he said.

A bill calling for a ban on shark fins, introduced by NDP MP Fin Donnelly, was narrowly defeated in 2013.

A previous Liberal government also attempted to update animal cruelty provisions about 15 years ago. It's something Erskine-Smith says hasn't been changed substantively since 1892.

'Gross negligence' versus 'willful'

Perhaps the biggest change to Code would be the creation of a new offence for individuals who cause unnecessary suffering to an animal by "gross negligence." As it stands, it's a crime to cause an animal pain through "willful" or deliberate neglect.

"In many cases, it can be difficult for a Crown prosecutor to prove that someone willfully intended to cause harm through neglect," he said. "So, instead, gross negligence is where there is a marked departure from a reasonable standard of conduct and an animal has unnecessarily suffered."

If passed, someone guilty of such mistreatment could spend two years behind bars.

The bill would also make it an offence to encourage or receive money for animal fights.

And it would update the definition of bestiality to mean, simply, sexual activity between a person and animal. While Erskine-Smith says that's what any reasonable person thinks it means already, a British Columbia Court of Appeal decision held that the criminal act requires penetration.

Accomplishing all this, however, will mean looking at animals as more than just property — a step that has set off alarm bells among some MPs in the past who fear such a move could jeopardize hunting rights.

Tory MP: 'Omnibus bill' poorly drafted, flawed

Manitoba Conservative MP Robert Sopuck, his party's critic for wildlife conservation and Parks Canada, released a statement last week calling the legislation "fundamentally flawed" and an "omnibus bill," because of the many laws it would change at once.

But he also expressed reservations about changing how animals are seen under the current law.