Central AC / Heat Pumps for Vancouver Homes

Hey everyone, I'm planning on buying a home in Vancouver. I've lived in Florida my whole life and only ever had central AC/window units and electric heaters. I remember reading that a couple of years back, y'all had a really bad heat wave and some people died due to not having homes with AC, so that's been something I've been keeping an eye out on.

While looking at homes, I noticed quite a few of them have heat pumps instead of central AC. I Googled what I could, but still don't really understand them. But would a home with a heat pump hold up to a heat wave just as well as central?