do I ask the FI how many hours he has, and do I ask for proof?! Is this the done thing, etiquette,do you guys get asked for any provenance at all
If you're signing up to a big flying school, you'll have little choice who you get (although you can request an instructor change, again you won't be able to specify who the new instructor should be).
If you approach a small school, yes, you could ask how much experience the instructor has, but don't ask for proof because that's rude. However, you probably won't be able to afford the most experienced instructors, or they will be already be overbooked months in advance.
By all means look around though - you don't have to settle for anything you're unhappy with!
there are a lot of people in aviation who think that holding an instructors rating is somehow an indication that the holder of said certificate is guaranteed to be a good teacher
Never met anyone with more than a thousand hours or so who suffered from that attitude. And, Chuck, just because I disagree with your definition of what you "are" (in a vocational descriptive sense rather than an existential sense) doesn't mean I think all instructors are great, or that I am great, or that pilots without an instructor's rating are un-great. I didn't know that one can do all this instructing in Canada without a formal rating - if someone instructs IFR as a vocation, yes, I think they certainly are an instructor in a vocational sense.
Cheers,
O8