How to import MTS files from Canon Vixia HF M40 to Mac for editing?

I recently bought a Canon Vixia HF M40 and I have been able to import the MTS video files to iMovie, but now that I want to edit in Adobe Premiere, I am at a loss. Can someone tell me an easy way to import these files to either my computer or into the program itself for editing. It is entirely too time consuming to import into iMovie and convert every single file to quicktime only to import into Premiere and export yet again (not to mention the quality loss). Thank you for any help you can give me.