rob25, just because the shares are personal, certainly does not mean that they can sell them whenever they want. In the US (I gotta believe it's somewhat similar in Canada), insiders typically check with the general counsel of the company (or someone else in legal, depending on the size of the company and legal staff) to make sure it's okay to sell and/or buy. Often, the legal department will issue a memo to all insiders telling them it is or is not a time to transact business in the company stock.

As to the 56K shares which an insider is looking to sell, a bit more insight might be gained if we knew how many shares this insider holds. If, for example, he/she holds a million shares, this would not be any reason at all for concern. If they held 100,000 shares, a different story, but not necessarily anything more sinister than someone needing some cash.