Back to your original question, the 'canards' are not really canards, as they are not large enough or far enough forward to be loaded as a tail first type airplane. They are used for maneuvering, as you have guessed, and are there to augment the wing lift by creating a vortex over the wing to maintain an energetic flow of air over the surface so that higher angles of attack can be maintained during high speed, high 'G' flight. What benefit they would be for a model, at the low speeds and loadings that models use, is probably more cosmetic than practical, but if you operate them from a mix, and show everyone what they do, you can probably fool most of the casual observers into thinking that they just gotta have 'em...
Evan, WB #12.