Mr. Chair, Madam Vice-Chair, and members of the committee, I want to first and foremost thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you this morning.

On behalf of the UFC, our athletes and mixed martial arts fans across Canada, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about our sport.

I'd also like to thank Senator Runciman for his stewardship in bringing Bill S-209 into the Senate, and the MP from Montreal, Massimo Pacetti, for introducing the bill in the House of Commons.

As both Senator Runciman and Mr. Pacetti mentioned, several people had the opportunity to speak to the committee in the Senate, which was addressing this issue, and there have been other opportunities for people to discuss the importance of bringing clarity to the Criminal Code and changing some of the ambiguity that currently exists within it.

I think it's important for people in this committee to understand that while my business card reads “Zuffa“, and it reads that I manage the UFC here in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, I'm actually here today representing the sport of mixed martial arts. So I have a MMA hat on and I'm trying to represent our sport, which in many ways is a very young sport compared with the other sports that we typically spend a lot of time talking about, be it boxing, which goes back into the 1800s, or hockey, football, basketball, and baseball, the traditional team sports, which are well into their second century. The sport of mixed martial arts is actually not even a teenager, when one considers its roots.

While there are thousands of professional mixed martial artists competing in Canada and many more tens of thousands around the world, there are also many aspiring athletes who want to be able to compete and to demonstrate their skills and their athleticism as mixed martial artists.

Unfortunately, the situation we have at the moment is that there's a cloud of uncertainty and there is ambiguity in the way the sport is considered municipally and provincially in many jurisdictions across the country.

The initiative to have subsection 83(2) of the Criminal Code changed is intended to bring in a more consistent regulatory environment in order to bring continuity to our sport and to eliminate the ambiguity that certainly is present in the language that was written back in the 1930s.

It's important because, as Senator Runciman mentioned, the sport of mixed martial arts is the fastest growing sport in the world, and Canada has a very unique position in this sport. It's a position of leadership, not only from the sport's perspective, but also from the regulatory perspective.

When I speak about how Canada is regarded, it's interesting that we—I'm speaking now about the UFC, the company I work with—are the largest league in the world. If you think of the sport as hockey and the league as the NHL, or the sport as football and the league as the CFL, this sport is mixed martial arts, and the number one league in the world is the UFC.

This year alone we will be holding approximately 33 events around the world, and three of them will be held in Canada. Of those 33 events, 13 will be what we call pay per view—big, large, global events—and Canada will be hosting three of them. A week and a half ago we were in Montreal for UFC 158. We will be going to Winnipeg, Manitoba for the first time for UFC 161 in June, and we will be back in Toronto for UFC 165 in September.

That's three out of 13 global events, and these events are opportunities not only for our sport to be showcased but our athletes to be showcased around the world.

We compete with other cities not only here in Canada but around the world to host these events. In the past 12 or 14 months we've held events in Tokyo, Japan; Sydney, Australia; Macau; London; Rio de Janeiro; and of course we've held them across Canada in the cities I've mentioned, but also in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Chicago—major metropolitan areas.

It's an interesting tribute to our sport that Canada on a per capita basis is the largest consumer of mixed martial arts in the world, and we are home to some of the most famous athletes. Georges St-Pierre—we've all heard of his name—represents not only the province of Quebec but also the country of Canada so very well. He is an eight-time defending world welterweight champion. He was one of the individuals who ended up filling the Bell Centre last Saturday for UFC 158 in Montreal. Not only was Georges St-Pierre on that card, but there were a total of eight Canadians.

Our athletes come from coast to coast to coast. From Nova Scotia, T. J. Grant is one of our top 10 ranked lightweights, and he is from Cole Harbour. We could think of other athletes from Cole Harbour. I guess T. J. Grant would be number two from Cole Harbour, given that he's not quite Sidney Crosby yet. There are others from across the country.

It's important that not only have we been a leader with regard to our sport globally from a business point of view and from an acceptance point of view, but also from a regulatory point of view. At the heart of this initiative to bring clarity to the Criminal Code and eliminate the ambiguity is the goal of providing a consistent framework for regulation across the country and the necessary safety and health protection environment for all of our athletes to compete in.

I bring this up in particular because I recall a question being asked about how this impacts provinces versus municipalities. One thing that is really important to remember—and again I'll have my mixed martial arts hat on, not my UFC hat—is that the importance of having consistent regulation is to make sure that every single organization, be it a large professional organization that has offices around the world, like the UFC, or a local professional mixed martial organization that may only conduct its business in Alberta, British Columbia or Nova Scotia, be held to a specific rigour and a specific standard when it comes to the health and safety of the sport.

In the absence of regulation, in the absence of this continuity, you run into the potential issue that other organizations will not be held to that standard, and it is so very important. While the UFC may be the largest organization in the world, and while I personally would love to see us go to the territory of Yukon and take an event there, the chances are that we will not be able to take an event to the Yukon. That doesn't mean other professional mixed martial arts organizations should not be provided with that opportunity, and if they are, that organization or any other organization needs to be held to a specific and a strong, certain rigour in the regulatory standards that are in place, again to protect the health and safety of the athletes.

Senator Runciman spoke to the importance of pre- and post-fight medical testing. We also do pre- and post-fight drug testing. You want to make sure that there is a level playing field for these athletes. You want to make sure that weight classes are respected. You want to make sure that the officials are properly trained. You want to make sure that the sport is regulated, as other sports around the world and around our country are properly regulated.

In the absence of the clarity that we're seeking and that Bill S-209 provides, you run into the risk that some provinces won't sanction it and that some provinces may adopt a different perspective. It's the consistency that's so very important to allowing a sport such as ours to continue to grow and allow our country to continue to have the leadership position that it has.

I can tell you that now that I and our company and my team in Toronto are responsible for the UFC's operations in Australia and New Zealand, when I go into those countries, not only do I represent our sport, but they are anxious to understand what the regulatory environment is like in Canada.

Again, we provide a level of leadership when it comes to taking our sport forward and making sure it is provided with the foundation and the consistent regulatory environment to allow the sport to continue to grow safely, in a healthy manner, and in such a way as to make sure that the athletes' health and safety is protected at all times.

With that, Mr. Chair, I'm happy to take any and all questions.

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