i have been given a pair of canaries and i want to breed them but don't know the first thing about it can anyone give me any advice on what i should do

first off, you will be waiting till at least march for them to breed now. at the moment canaries will be moulting. unlike many other domesticated finches, they have a set breeding season which is march-july. so you have plenty time to do research.
there are different ways of doing thing, and the show breeders methods are often time consuming and i feel often unnessesary.
provide the pair with an enclosed breeding cage. a large nest basket or preferable a nest pan, a variety of nest materials including soft dry grass, hessian string cut into short lengths and softer downy material (not cotton wool) and some fethers.
from about mid february you want to be providing a softened egg food twice a week and from march daily untill the young are through the moult.
the female will lay an egg each day and its recomended you remove the eggs as they are laid and replace them with plastic dummy eggs. once the clutch is complete, replace the dummies with the real eggs. this means all the eggs will hatch at the same time and the chicks will all be equaly fed and grow at the same rate.
the female will do virtualy all the incubation, with the male feeding her while she is on the eggs. he rarely helps with incubation duties.
once the babies hatch, they will need to be fed greenfood such as dandilion collected from a clean source. half ripe dandylion seeds are also great. also a small amout of soft eggfood 2-3 times a day.
once the babies leave the nest and have been out the nest for a few days mum is likely to want to breed again so the babies need to be removed to another cage. move dad with them as he will continue to feed them till they can eat them selves, but move him back in with his mate for an hour twice a day, until the babies are feeding themselves and then he can stay with mum.

hope this helps

i think you would need several pairs in a avairy to succeed with getting one or more breeding pairs

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