Wants to flip a house - Capital gains or straight income ?

My question is: Canadian-specific

QUESTION: I have a house which I am living at for over a year but I would
also like to buy another house and flip it. What kind of taxes are involved?
Is it 50% tax free and 50% claimed as income in Alberta?

david ingram replies:

In Canada, the purchase of a house with the intention to "flip" it before
you even buy it is clearly a venture in the nature of trade and taxable as
straight income - not as a capital gain. I believe the same situation
exists in the US although i will admit that most tax professionals in the
USA would disagree with me and treat it as a capital gain - more from
tradition, than logic I feel.

In Canada, this is in contrast to stock trades where a specific election
under section 36(4) allows short term stock trades to be treated as a
capital gain (or loss) rather than a straight business gain if the person
doing the trade is not an insider or a professional trader.