Photo of Justin Trudeau wearing brownface at 2001 party published by Time Magazine

A 2001 photograph of Justin Trudeau wearing brownface makeup at a private school dinner party has surfaced online just after the Canadian prime minister launched a reelection campaign in the wake of one of the nation’s biggest political scandals.

“I can confirm it is him,” Zita Astravas, a spokesperson for the Liberal Party of Canada, told ABC News in a statement on Wednesday. “It was a photo taken in 2001 while he was teaching in Vancouver, at the school’s annual dinner which had a costume theme of ‘Arabian Nights.’ He attended with friends and colleagues dressed as a character from Aladdin.”

The photo was first published, along with an article, by Time Magazine.

“I should have known better, but I didn’t,” Trudeau told reporters later Wednesday night. “I deeply regret that I did that. I should have known better.”

John Morris/Reuters

According to Time, which obtained a copy of the 2000-2001 West Point Grey Academy yearbook in which the photo appears, Trudeau, then 29, was an instructor at the school. He taught classes including French until he left after the spring 2001 term.

The photograph shows the prime minister wearing a turban, robes and with his hands, neck and face covered in dark makeup. Others at the event seen in different costumes in different photographs did not appear to have darkened their skin with makeup, Time reported.

Other politicians have had similarly regretful photographs surface recently.

Earlier this year, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam refused to resign after first apologizing for, and then denying he was in, a 1984 yearbook photo depicting one man in blackface and another wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey apologized earlier this year for wearing blackface while doing a skit while at Auburn University.

Trudeau, 47, already was facing a tough campaign after Canada’s ethics commissioner said in August that he had improperly pressured then-Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to halt the criminal prosecution of the engineering company SNC-Lavalin, a major employer in Quebec, according to The Associated Press.

“The prime minister, directly and through his senior officials, used various means to exert influence over Ms. Wilson-Raybould,” Mario Dion, the ethics commissioner, wrote at the time. “The authority of the prime minister and his office was used to circumvent, undermine and ultimately attempt to discredit the decision of the director of public prosecutions as well as the authority of Ms. Wilson-Raybould.”