Does the canard config have radically different controls than classic config?
As far as in-cockpit controls, a canard has the same control setup as a conventional airplane.  Stick or yoke, throttle(s), rudder pedals.

All the differences are hidden in the linkages or hydraulics -- pulling the stick back lowers the elevator on the canard, instead of raising one on a rear stabilizer, but to the pilot it's the same.

There are some minor technique difference in actually flying a canard; stalls are very different (I've heard some canards referred to as "almost impossible to stall"), and trimming pitch is slightly different; correct CG location is very different (usually ahead of the leading edge of the wing or, at most rearward, roughly even with the leading edge of the root of a swept wing), and the engine or engines are almost always located in the rear -- but once again, the pilot manages the engines very nearly identically to a conventional airplane (with the exception that, in case of a failure, he can't just look out the window to see if an engine is on fire).