There will surely be some noise about Maine’s (which is nearby) lax gun laws.
Yet when one compare’s Canada’s Maritime provinces to the neighbouring U.S. states, this is what Wikipedia reveals:
2016 homicide rates for the Maritimes:
New Brunswick: 1.45/100,000 people
Nova Scotia: 1.37/100,000
Newfoundland: 1.32/100,000
Prince Edward Island: 0
Neighbouring or nearby American states for 2016:
Maine: 1.5/100,000 people (1.6/100,000 in 2014)
New Hampshire: 1.3/100,000 (0.9/100,000 in 2014)
Vermont: 2.2/100,000 (1.6/100,000 in 2014)
Massachusetts (note with stricter laws than the above three states) 2.0/100,000 (2.0/100,000 in 2014 as well).
It is quite common for neighbouring U.S. states to have homicide rates close to (or even in a few instances lower) than the neighbouring Canadian provinces and that many of these states (excluding New York and Massachusetts) have very casual firearms laws (particularly the Vermont/New Hampshire/Maine region even after Vermont recently adopted some nominal restrictions and that that was not done without a great deal of controversy).