Found an interesting article on the Paris crash which highlighted an interesting issue over the canards.
"the left canard-wing separated, struck the wing and punctured the fueltank. The Tupolev crashed in flames into the small town of Goussainville."
The canards were indeed retrofitted to improve the low speed handling and stability characteristics. As someone has already pointed out, Tu 144's wing was not as good as Concorde's and couldn't cope with the massive shift in cp across the flight envelope. They were also retractable and affectionately known as "moustaches"