It could, but it's kind of overkill when the job can be done with more simple stuff. I've come to believe that just about anything is possible in terms of people installing unusual rigging and hardware on canoes, so who knows? The other thing worth investigating is whether or not the pole really matches the other parts of the rig. I've seen numerous old sailing rigs offered for sale where old parts were included that obviously came from something else - as if the owner just went into the boathouse and grabbed anything that looked like it might have originally been part of the canoe sailing rig. It wouldn't be particularly unusual to by an old lateen rig, for example, and find that somebody unknowingly tossed in a whisker pole from an old sailing dinghy that they also once owned.
Poling out the jib and/or sailing wing-and-wing with a canoe most likely aren't going to be very efficient. You can almost always generate both a lot more speed and get to the destination faster (even though you sail a greater distance) by heading up a bit and broad reaching, rather than sailing downwind.
