A Surrey man has pleaded guilty to assaulting a bus driver and stabbing a passenger earlier this year.

Steven Fayant, 20, was charged with stabbing a man on a bus near Aldergrove Centre Mall on Feb. 21 and with assault for choking a Surrey bus driver on Feb. 18.

Drew Snider, media advisor for TransLink, hopes Fayant’s sentencing will act as a deterrent to similar acts of violence in the future. He believes incidents like these endanger many innocent people.

“(It is) one of these situations where dozens of people could potentially have their lives put at risk because there's the people on the bus and there's the people out on the road,” he said.

Snider said TransLink, the Coast Mountain Bus Company and the union that represents the bus drivers have lobbied for mandatory jail terms for assaulting transit workers.

Fayant is due back in court on Dec. 5 for a preliminary sentencing. The judge has also ordered a psychiatric evaluation.

Don MacLeod, president of bus drivers’ union, also thinks a strong message needs to be sent.

“As in all these cases, we think that the law should support jail time (for) these situations. Of course that’s contingent on if there’s a medical report that comes back that maybe this person should be getting assistance for other issues,” said MacLeod. “You just can't go out there and assault drivers and expect to get away with it.”