BackPacker,
Just a kind of devil's advocate came up in me when people start on about the main wing stalling before the tail ergo tail must provide downforce.
The canard is only tailplane lift taken to it's logical extreme. Please explain how these work and lifting tailplanes on 'conventional' aircraft don't.
Any discussion of stalling characteristics is irrelevant anyway because the certifying standards require either sufficient aerodynamic warning of the impending stall or artificial warning. That is to say, a stick shaker and pusher system.
I think there may be some confusion also in that the stall occurs outside of the operating envelope where tailplane lift is most beneficial. It is in the cruise that you really want the efficiency of a lifting tail.
I seem to remember the ATR-72 has a take-off trim scale from -1.5 to +5 where the -42 only has a positive scale. Positive as in negative, of course, + being nose up.
Sorry for the thread shift.